


Haunts the Blood

by sullymygoodname



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Nemeton, Post-Season 3A, Spirits, canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:16:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullymygoodname/pseuds/sullymygoodname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set a few months after the end of season 3A (so not 3B compliant at all): After the events on the night of the lunar eclipse, the Nemeton's influence pervades the town, affecting Scott, Allison, Stiles, Lydia, and Derek. Something in that creeping darkness is calling out, drawing them all back together. Derek feels it from miles away, but it only becomes more complicated upon his return to Beacon Hills.</p>
<p>Or, in which: the Nemeton is doing things; Lydia is also doing things again; these things are definitely related, but Stiles is distracted by the new things he's doing with Derek. Derek is just confused and angsty. (This fic isn't as silly as I'm making it out to be, I swear.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunts the Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Elements of dub-con - one character feels his actions are the result of supernatural forces, instead of purely his own desires. (See end notes for details.) Also, the twins are still around and mentioned briefly, but they aren't active in this story.
> 
> I've been avoiding spoilers for 3B as much as possible (except for that first teaser we got after 3x12) so this will likely bear no resemblance to the upcoming season at all. I wanted to finish before the new episodes began and BY GUM I DID IT. Just barely. (Gah, I haven't even seen the new episode yet!) It would not have been possible without [bluefjords](http://bluefjords.tumblr.com/) and [venivincere](http://venivincere.tumblr.com/). Thank you so much for the beta and encouragement. You guys are the best <3
> 
> Title is a line from the song ['AWOO' by The Hidden Cameras](http://youtu.be/Z1m66vjAFRU) (watch the video, it's wolfy) Ah-awooooo!
> 
> The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the creator's imagination or are used fictitiously. This story does not reflect the views or opinions of any actual person portrayed herein.  
> ...Anyway, IT'S JUST ~~CLAY~~ ...er, FICTION!

* * *

 

Almost exactly one year after the first time, Stiles runs into Derek Hale in the woods surrounding the Beacon Hills Wildlife Preserve.

Only this time, literally.

"Haven't you learned yet not to go wandering the woods at night?" are the first words out of Derek's mouth.

Stiles says, "Ow."

The ground is cold and wet under his butt. He rubs his left elbow with his right hand and squints up at the absence of stars in the shape of a man, trying to make out any distinguishing features. Sure, it sounds like Derek, but weird shit's been going down for a while now. Weirder even than all of last year combined.

Okay, maybe not combined.

Still though, Stiles has learned to be suspicious. More so than he already was, even. He hasn't seen Derek since October when he and Cora just up and left, so there's no fathomable reason he can think of for Derek to be standing over him, glowering, right now. Stiles squints harder, the silhouette slowly emerging as a familiar, stubbled face. He wishes, not for the first time, that he had supernatural senses to help in these situations because this staring contest isn't clarifying anything.

The glower slowly decreases, eyebrows rising in tiny increments until a beat later, Derek says, "Hello? You fell on your ass, not your head. Have I finally knocked you into speechlessness?"

With a huff that feels more like relief than he's willing to admit, Stiles rolls his eyes. "Guess you really are Derek."

"Who else would I be?"

"I don't know, you could be a mirage or something. Freakier shit has been known to happen around here." Stiles flexes his left arm, bending at the elbow to test it. Hurts, but it's just bruised.

"You bumped into me; doesn't that prove I'm a real, live, corporeal being?" Derek bends forward, extending a hand for Stiles to take as though to prove his physical existence. Stiles places his dirty palm in Derek's (remarkably) smooth one and allows himself to be hauled to his feet. "And why would you be seeing a mirage of _me_?" Derek asks, steadying Stiles with his other hand.

Ignoring that completely, Stiles says, "Corporeal? You studying for the SATs, too?"

"Why are you out here," Derek repeats in a flat voice this time.

Glancing around them, Stiles realizes he's lost his sense of direction and can't recall which way he'd been heading before barreling into Derek. "Lydia's missing," he says, grimly. "I'm trying to find her."

"Alone. In the woods. At night."

"Let it go, man." Stiles claps a hand on Derek's upper arm with a little pat, then snatches his hand back before it gets bitten off. "Scott, Isaac, and Allison are out looking, too," he explains, "but they're on the other side of town."

"They let you go off by yourself?"

"Um, excuse you, they didn't _let_ me; I don't need their permission," Stiles says, dusting his hands off on his pants. 

Derek's eyes narrow at him before rolling up toward the sky. "They told you to stay home and you went out anyway."

"Pretty much," Stiles confirms, forcing a cheery grin. It's not the first time and, given the circumstances that have become his life, it won't be the last. "What the hell are _you_ doing here? I mean I... wasn't expecting you to come back. This town isn't really full of great memories for you, is it."

Derek's lips part, a sharp breath taken about to be expelled in retort, but he stops. Exhales slowly. And doesn't say anything for a few seconds.

"I wasn't planning to." The words are quiet, like a confession. Stiles had forgotten Derek's voice. In his head, Derek sounds gruff and growly, but in real life he's much more soft-spoken. A tenor where one would expect a baritone.

When he doesn't say anything more, Stiles gestures expansively for him to elaborate. "Soo...?"

"I had this—" Derek cuts himself off again, jaw clenching until Stiles can see that minute twitch in his cheek, and shakes his head. "I didn't know if I should see any of you while I was here. Or let you see me." 

"What, you were just gonna sneak through town? Check up on us and then leave again?"

Derek meets his eyes, holds his gaze. "Yes." 

The stare-off doesn't last as long this time. Stiles pokes his tongue into his cheek, working on what to say.

"Well," he goes with, "you've checked up, nobody saw you — except me, but I guess I don't really count — and everyone's fine. Except Lydia, who is missing, but that probably doesn't matter to you, so looks like your work here is done and you can scamper off back to wherever the hell. We're good."

Derek's expression turns sharp, nostrils flaring. His hands are fisted at his sides. Stiles would apologize for the tone, except, no, he really wouldn't, and he doesn't have time for this right now. He moves to walk around Derek, but is stopped by a hand on his chest.

"Something's been happening here," Derek says, up in Stiles's face, eyes searching his. "Right? In the last few months since... since I left."

He stares into Derek's eyes for a minute before he lets his shoulders drop and shoves Derek's hand away. "If we're having this conversation, we're gonna do it while we find Lydia. Come on." He sidesteps Derek completely this time, but a hand snags his sleeve and pulls him up short.

When Stiles looks back at him, Derek lets go and jerks a thumb in the other direction. "You were headed this way before."

Ignoring Derek's high, expectant eyebrows, and his own heated blush, Stiles twists around and walks that way, not waiting for, or anticipating, Derek to follow. He does.

"Do you even know where you're going?" Derek asks a minute later.

"Does it look like I know where I'm going?" Stiles stops and spins around to face him. "Are you helping? Is that why you're here? You guys are supposed to be good at tracking, so track. Can you smell anything? Anything, I dunno, Lydia-scented?" He sucks in a lungful of air, suddenly out of breath. He's not panicking. He refuses.

Derek is watching him, stoic as ever. He steps closer to Stiles to stand beside him. "Why doesn't she just scream? Like last time."

"If she wanted to be found," Stiles mutters, turning away and plodding onward again.

"Why wouldn't she want to be found?"

Stiles sighs and stops walking again. Derek's shoulder bumps his when he stops, too. 

"It's maybe, a little, tiny bit possible that Lydia's not… um, the one behind the wheel at the moment?" Stiles says, running his hand through his hair. "Look, we don't know. This weirdness with her started a couple weeks ago, just before break — hey, happy New Year, by the way. You missed a hell of a celebration."

"Really?" Derek asks like he doesn't believe him. Or care.

"No. We did nothing. Everyone's been a little on edge," Stiles tells him and resumes walking. "Anyway, with school out it was easier to keep tabs on her — Allison stayed with her mostly — but Lydia walked out of second hour this morning and nobody has seen her since."

"She's done this before, though, right? Disappeared."

"Yes, a few times, when she found all those bodies, but she was never gone longer than an hour or two tops. Except that time when she left the hospital. You know, after Peter." Stiles whips his head to the side to view Derek's profile. "And where is he? Do you know?"

Derek's eyebrows furrow. "He isn't here?"

Stiles shakes his head. "Nobody's seen him since that night with the… everything. The eclipse." He takes another deep breath, willing himself calm. "But we did find blood — fresh blood — on the stump of the Nemeton the next day."

"Whose blood?"

"Don't know. Scott said it had no scent, like it—like it wasn't even there. Or real. But we all saw it, soaked into the wood." Stiles kicks some soggy, dead leaves out of their path. "That's not all. People around town have gone... strange. The whole town is just, I don't know, like everyone's expecting a blow. Bracing themselves for it. My dad says people have been more quick-tempered than usual, too. It's not—nothing's _happened_ really, it's just this... pervasive... like, growing sort of..." His fingers curl, grasping for words.

"Wrongness," Derek finishes for him, certainty in his voice catching Stiles off guard, but he nods agreement.

"Yeah. It's definitely not the calm before the storm because nobody has been calm. The storm's already here; it just hasn't blown up yet." In the distance, there's a slow rumble of thunder. Stiles looks at the sky. "I was speaking metaphorically!" he calls up to it.

"And this has to do with the Nemeton." The way Derek says it, it's not just _not_ a question, but like he's confirming suspicions he already had.

"You feel it, right?" Stiles asks. "This like—electricity in the air." Even as his tongue shapes the words, a tingle surges up his body and all over his scalp. It's almost like ASMR (which Stiles has never had, but he read about it for three hours one night) except the lingering sensation is more anticipatory than euphoric. He raises his arm, pulling up the sleeve of his jacket, and all the hairs are standing on end. "Kinda like this."

Derek's head snaps toward the trees behind them, eyes flashing blue in the darkness, half a second before a tidal wave of pressure sweeps Stiles's feet right out from under him. He goes down harder this time, slamming into the ground on his back and knocking the wind out of him.

He tries to speak, or catch his breath; his mouth flaps open in soundless gasps. Derek is crouching over him, eyes like blue high beams, when the second wave blasts through and sends Derek sprawling on top of him. There's a scramble of limbs as Derek tries to push himself off, as Stiles sucks in a lungful of air, but that pressure forces them back down. Stiles can breathe now, but he still can't move, held down by more than just the weight of Derek's body on top of him. He grips Derek's shoulders, steadies his breathing, chest and stomach expanding as far as the weight allows. One of them turns his head, and suddenly Derek's lips are touching his.

It nearly knocks the air out of him all over again, the seconds hang there in suspended animation while neither of them moves. Stiles has been kissed by a couple of people recently, both unexpectedly, caught by surprise, and this time he refuses to be too stunned to kiss back. So he gives it everything he's got.

His hand finds its way into Derek's hair, cradling the back of his skull at first tentatively and then with intent. Derek manages to roll sideways, and Stiles rolls with him, their legs interlocking. Heat undulates along their bodies, the air like static cling. Where before the ground was cold and damp, it's now warm and brittle beneath Stiles's hands.

Another wave of heat rolls up Stiles's body, starting from his toes and welling up through his legs into a strong urge to push his hips into Derek's.

Derek pushes back. And keeps kissing him, his hands bunched in the fabric of Stiles's jacket.

The air is heavy, a solid mass above them, inflating like a balloon until it pops and the pressure is gone. Stiles can move, lift himself up and off, and he's never seen Derek's eyes this wide before.

That's when Lydia screams.

The sound pierces the night and fills in all the spaces previously occupied by that strange pressure. The air is cold and damp again on his skin.

Stiles is still scrambling up to regain his balance, while Derek has already sprung to his feet and is heading off in the direction of the scream. Stiles stumbles after, tripping over downed branches to keep up, though he knows if Derek really wanted to lose him he could do so easily. The closer they get, the more forceful the sound becomes until it's almost a physical tug on his bones. Derek covers his ears, but keeps going.

They find Lydia at the Nemeton as her voice tapers off into a pitiful whimper. She's kneeling in the center of the stump with her arms outstretched, reaching forward. When she looks up at them, her eyes are wet and her face streaming with tears.

"It's out," she croaks, shoulders heaving, then slumps sideways. Derek catches her before her head can hit the moss-covered wood. Stiles leaps over outstretched roots and brambles, up onto the stump, but Lydia's eyes are closed and she's no longer conscious.

Carefully, with one finger, he peels away a tangle of hair stuck to her pink lips and tucks it back out of her face.

"What did she mean by that?" Derek asks, but when Stiles glances up at him he's looking away, still holding Lydia slightly aloft in his big hands.

"I don't know. Nothing good, probably," Stiles says. "This is the first place I looked. She wasn't here before." His frustration is starting to reach new levels. "I should call Scott, tell him I found her."

"I'm sure he heard that. He'll be on his way." Derek's still looking anywhere but at him. 

"But Lydia can't stay out here any longer. She's been outside all day with no coat on. I should take her to the hospital or something. She needs to get checked out, make sure she's all right." He sends a quick text to Scott with the words 'Lydia' and 'hospital' but he's not sure the rest of the message is entirely coherent.

Derek turns his gaze from the trees to Stiles's face. "How long have you been out here?"

Stiles shrugs. "Few hours? What time is it?"

Derek's eyes roam over him for a second, then he looks up at the sky through the sparse tree branches. "A little after midnight."

Stiles makes a move to reach for her, to accept her weight into his own arms. "I can—"

"I've got her." Derek scoops Lydia up like she weighs nothing, and cradles her limp body against his chest. "Where's your Jeep?"

Stiles leads the way, hovering at Derek's elbow in case of he doesn't know what, but that's Lydia unconscious there, again, and he'll be damned if he leaves her. Again. So he stays at Derek's side, fingers twitching to help in any way, tripping as he goes, until Derek grunts at him to pay attention to where he's going. Other than that, Derek doesn't speak another word. He puts Lydia in the passenger seat when they reach the Jeep, even buckles her safety belt securely around her and gently closes the door, mindful of her head. He takes off back into the woods before Stiles can even say thanks.

So, they're definitely not talking about how fifteen minutes ago his tongue touched Derek's tongue. Okay then.

 

* * *

 

He starts at a brisk walk, but it quickly becomes an all out run as Derek makes his way back to the Nemeton. He'll find answers there; it's where this all started.

The dreams were fuzzy at best, wisps of scent and emotion that sang through his veins. Calling him back to this place. Haunting him.

It was overwhelming each time he awoke. Cora hadn't been affected the whole time they were on the road, but the farther Derek had gotten from Beacon Hills, the stronger it became, the feeling—no, the _knowledge_ that he needed to come back. But never enlightening him as to _why_.

It's just a tree stump. Broken. Dead.

He stares at it a long while, willing it to give him answers. Obviously something is happening in Beacon Hills, and this is the center of it, but why is Derek here? What is he needed for?

Why does he want to turn around and follow that little blue Jeep? 

_It's out._ That's what Lydia said. Did that mean _it_ , whatever had been controlling her, was out of her? Or…

That force that swept through the forest. If she let something out, something powerful, powerful enough to knock him right off his feet...

Powerful enough to make him—

The memory of heat coursing through him, up and down his entire body, sets his hair standing on end. The weight of a warm body pressed tight to his, slim waist held between his hands. He can still taste Stiles with every breath and swallow.

Whatever had been unleashed, it went right through them, power manifested. Is that what beckoned to him in his dreams? Was he supposed to stop it? How? _Why?_ He's not an alpha anymore, he's not anyone, so why does this fall on his shoulders?

"It's all because of you, Derek," her voice breezes across his ears, a gentle caress like the way her fingers had touched his skin when they were together. He looks up, and Jennifer is standing there opposite him, the Nemeton a plateau between them.

Her smile lights her eyes, a bright white glow, and then she's gone. Nothing left but cold, winter frost.

 

* * *

 

Dad's waiting up for him (he does that more often these days) when Stiles finally trudges into the house at one in the morning. He's so tired that he can barely raise his feet the few inches to make it over the threshold.

Dad catches him when he stumbles. "Are you—"

"Fine. I'm fine. Just tired," Stiles says. "We found her." Instead of straightening up and losing the comfort of his father's hands, Stiles leans into the embrace and hugs his dad tight. "You didn't have to wait up; you have work in the morning."

"And you have school." His arms wrap around Stiles's back and squeeze. "Leaving a voicemail on the landline that you know I won't check until I get home is _not_ keeping me informed, Stiles."

"Sorry," he says, even though they both know he's not. Not really. Sure, now his dad knows about werewolves and druids and hunters ( _Oh my!_ ) but that doesn't mean Stiles wants him out there if it's not necessary.

"But you found her? She's all right?" his dad asks when they pull back from the hug.

"Yeah. She's staying with Allison and Mr. Argent. Scott's mom checked her over, said she'll be fine. She's just tired and cold and was starting to get dehydrated. She's okay, though," Stiles says, nodding and trying to give a reassuring smile.

Dad looks at him oddly, eyes scouring his face. "You didn't run into any trouble?"

A short, hiccupping breath bursts from him; it's almost a laugh. "Phrasing," he wheezes, and his dad's face goes serious. Stiles claps him on the shoulder. "No, no. I promise I didn't run into... trouble. Not this time." He ran into something, but Derek showing up doesn't have to mean anything bad. Or anything at all.

After convincing his dad that he's not hungry and just wants to go to bed, they say goodnight and part at the top of the stairs. Stiles watches his dad retreat into his own bedroom, then heads to the bathroom to clean up. As he's washing the dirt from his hands, he glances up into the mirror and notices the redness around his mouth and on his cheeks. He touches his face lightly with wet fingertips and finds his skin sore and sensitive.

He inhales sharply at the sting. Or maybe the realization that it's from Derek's stubble. From Derek's face rubbing all over his face. His skin goes even redder and hot to the touch. God, _that's_ what his dad was scrutinizing him for? Stiles wonders what went through his dad's mind, seeing that. _Trouble_ , right. Thankfully the idea that Stiles had just made out with a werewolf would never occur to him.

Examining himself more closely in the mirror, turning his head this way and that, he remembers the supple, warm, wet mouth on his. Hands clutching at his clothes. And heat. So much heat all around and through him. Both of them. Derek kissed him back. Didn't he? Did Stiles imagine that? Is this wishful thinking? Or retroactive wishful thinking? Does that even apply if it's something he's never wished for or thought about before?

He splashes cold water on his face, half expecting steam when it touches his skin. He wipes himself dry with a towel, wincing at the roughness. Hopefully the sensitivity and redness will fade by morning. The memory surely won't.

In his bedroom, he flicks the light switch on—

"Hi, Stiles!"

—and stumbles back into the doorframe, clipping his bruised elbow. He barely feels it, though, because Heather is standing by his window. She looks happy to see him, smiling like she did the last night she was alive, when she greeted him at her birthday party.

A breath lodges in his chest. He blinks and she's gone. His room is exactly as he left it this morning; the blinds on the window haven't even twitched.

He stands in the doorway for a minute, shaky and trying to suck in enough air. His pulse is racing, and the sudden silence in the room amplifies the sound of blood rushing past his ears. Glancing out into the darkened hallway, Stiles contemplates tip-toeing over to his dad's room and waking him up. Asking him to check for monsters under the bed like he did when he was little. Or just crawling under the covers on the far side of his dad's bed and sleeping there, safe and sound.

Stiles rubs at his eyes then looks around the room again. He's exhausted. That's all it is. Exhaustion and stress, that's what people are always saying, right? He makes his way over to his bed, shedding clothes across the floor, and collapses into the mattress. He leaves the light on all night, eyes repeatedly drawn to the window, but eventually he slips off to sleep.

 

 

Stiles sleeps deep enough that he misses his alarm and is almost late for school the next morning. When he gets there, he's relieved to see Lydia with Allison in the hall adjacent to their lockers. Before he can approach, however, Lydia gives him a tiny shake of her head that barely swishes the braid at the back of her neck. She links her arm through Allison's and pulls her off in the opposite direction toward their first class. She's obviously not ready to talk then. Stiles respects that.

Scott comes up to him, then, and bends close. "So, I guess Allison said that Lydia still doesn't remember anything about yesterday. Like, not even coming to school or leaving her house in the morning." She'd been disoriented last night, and by the time Stiles left, she had no idea how she'd even gotten there.

"You guess?" Stiles asks, shouldering his backpack and ushering them to class.

"Isaac stayed up talking with her on the phone most of the night," Scott says, with a little shrug that doesn't detract from his sad eyes. Stiles gives his shoulder a squeeze, but doesn't say anything. There are times when even he knows it's best to keep his mouth shut. The bell rings, and they sprint through the halls to get through the classroom door before their new English teacher of the week marks them tardy.

In class they're supposed to be reading silently, so of course Scott leans forward in his seat to whisper to Stiles. "Dude, so what _did_ happen last night?"

He glimpses Scott at his shoulder out of the corner of his eye and turns his head away just a fraction to hide his face. Heat that started in his gut blooms outward and rushes into his cheeks. Not unlike that wave of heat that had crashed over him last night, with Derek's body hard beneath his. Stiles swallows and takes a shaky breath.

"Like I told you," he whispers back to Scott, one eye on the teacher's desk at the front of the room. The old guy has his chair facing away from the class with a book on his lap. Stiles wonders if he's actually reading or if he fell asleep. The longer he stares at the man's mismatched socks visible below the too-short cuffs of his trousers, the more he can feel the hot blood in his cheeks slowly seeping away.

"All you said was that she did something. But what, Stiles?"

Deciding the teacher isn't paying them any attention, he turns around fully in his seat to face Scott. "We don't know. I mean I don't," Stiles edits, hoping any lingering blush or stuttering heartbeats will be chalked up to worry. "But something happened, and Lydia's the only one who can tell us."

In truth, he can't say he's one-hundred percent focused on that today. He saw a dead girl in his bedroom last night, and one of his friends is being used as a supernatural puppet again. Finding out what Lydia did should be his priority. Finding out if he's finally cracked, also, should take a spot near the top of the list. 

Thinking about Derek's hands and mouth and basically everything else attached to him should _not_ be filling his every other thought. Unless that's just part of his slow slide into crazytown. What if it didn't really happen? What if Derek wasn't even there at all? Last night, he'd been expecting Scott or Isaac to ask why he smelled like Derek because surely his scent would've been _all over_ Stiles. So, when neither of them brought it up or even looked at him funny, Stiles just… didn't mention it.

Lydia saw him, though. Except she's apparently blanked out the whole day and night. If she remembered, she would confront Stiles about it.

She deftly avoids him and Scott for the rest of the day, but Allison sticks close to her so Stiles is fine with letting it be. For now. She's also still sort of seeing Aiden and, even though Stiles doesn't like the guy, with a werewolf and a hunter with her nearly every minute of the day, Lydia should be all right.

After school, he asks Scott to cover for him at lacrosse practice, then hops in his Jeep and speeds out of the student parking lot.

If Derek really was with him in the forest last night, then he's gotta be around town somewhere.

 

* * *

 

In the light of day, it's still just a tree. Not even a whole tree. Derek doesn't get any mystical vibes from it. It looks and feels dead. Any visible signs of blood on the stump have faded too much for him to tell, and he can't smell it, either. He finds the opening to the root cellar, the ground all crumbling and caved in, and climbs down. There are two broken beams supporting the ceiling, beginning to bend beneath the weight, but enough to create a tight tunnel for Derek to maneuver through.

The last time he was down here... the memory is hazy. Derek remembers her, _Paige_ , but not her last words to him. Or if he'd kissed her one last time. Or what happened afterward. His mother took those memories to protect him and, at the time, he was grateful to give them away. Perhaps he shouldn't have let them go so easily.

The roots splay out, a tangled mess, but intact. They aren't any more vibrant with life than what's left above ground. Cautiously, Derek stretches a hand out, hesitant to touch. He's not sure what he's expecting — a shock or a jolt or those same sparks of a presence like in his dreams — but it's just cool and dry and gritty with dirt under his palm. There's nothing of that energy from last night.

_It's out._

What did she mean? The power of the Nemeton has been released into the atmosphere, into the very air and earth and people? Into him and Stiles? Is that what that was? A reaction to the power? A force penetrating them, _compelling_ them.

White hot anger rips through Derek. He lashes out, digging his claws into the snarl where tree meets earth, and _tears_. He pulls and slashes and deconstructs its very foundations, the heart and the soul, the source that has plagued and violated him. He claws until his arms are shaky and his muscles are sore, until he's panting for air, as though the miniscule amount of oxygen in this dark cave has been vacuumed out. Until the roots of the Nemeton are but a pile of dead wood on the floor next to him.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, wipe the sweat and dirt from his eyes, Derek leans back against the far wall. He has to hunch down, nearly to the ground, to keep from hitting his head. When he settles, he looks up and the roots are back in place, a twisted mass growing up, up, up and disappearing into the soil. The pile he'd created is gone.

A sound escapes him; he's not sure he could call it a laugh, but he's also not crying here in a hole in the ground. He draws his knees up to his chest, rests his chin on his folded arms, and watches.

Nothing happens. It's just a tree.

Derek contemplates setting fire to it, but that's the sort of rash stupidity that has backfired on him his entire life. Magic and fire are always a volatile mix anyway.

There is someone who'd be useful here, someone who thinks things through, looks at all angles, comes up with plans involving schematics and contingencies.

He's just the last person that Derek wants to see right now.

He should go directly to Lydia, but he's pretty certain that she wouldn't even speak to him. He doesn't know if she blames him — for Peter or anything or everything — but he can sense that she doesn't like him. Although, he gets the feeling that she doesn't _like_ many people, and tolerates even fewer.

After crawling out of the root cellar, Derek shakes the dirt out of his hair and clothes. He gives the Nemeton a rather wide berth as he passes it, feeling stupid even as he does so, but he casts it one last glance before heading back through the woods toward the main road.

Until something bumps into him.

"Dude," Stiles says, bouncing backward off Derek's chest. Without thinking, he reaches out and grips Stiles's arms to keep him from falling on his ass this time. Stiles wobbles and steps back quickly. "I've been looking all over town for you. Do you have any idea how many abandoned buildings there are around here these days? A lot, is how many."

"I'm staying at the motor lodge on North Canyon Drive," Derek says before he can stop himself. If he sounds defensive, well... he is, a little. Stiles doesn't appear to take any notice.

"I figured you wouldn't go back to the loft," he says. "Building's being renovated, anyway, so you couldn't even if you wanted to." He points beyond Derek, toward the clearing. "Guess you had the same idea I did."

Derek glances over his shoulder and back. "You were going to try to destroy the Nemeton?"

"I thought maybe—what?" Stiles's eyes widen. "You tried to destroy it?" He stares, unblinking, and Derek shrugs. Stiles chews his bottom lip, then asks, "Did it work?"

Derek flicks his eyes away from Stiles's mouth quickly. "No."

He takes Stiles into the root cellar, climbing down first and listening to Stiles cursing the whole way behind him. "This seemed easier the last time I did it," Stiles says when he slides the last couple feet and lands on scuffing sneakers. They both have to stoop and sort of crab-walk through.

Pointing at the root mass, Derek explains how he tore them out and they just reappeared as if nothing happened.

"You tore them out with your bare hands?" Stiles looks between the roots and Derek. He grabs Derek's hand and lifts it up. "Is that blood? Did you cut yourself? You know blood powers this thing, right? You probably just gave it some super wolf mojo or something!"

Derek snatches his hand back and ducks away. "Yeah, she said it was my fault," he mutters to himself.

"What?" Stiles asks, looking at him curiously.

"Nothing."

"Fine, don't tell me." Stiles turns away from him and steps right up into the cluster of roots, examining them closely. Derek wonders what he's looking for — they're seriously just roots — then he realizes that the scant winter daylight filtering down from above must be barely enough for his human eyes to see. Stiles should carry a flashlight with him at all times or something; don't humans think of these things?

"Huh," Stiles says, leaning away. "What if we try burning it?" He glances sideways at Derek. "Uh, sorry, man."

Derek huffs, but doesn't look over at Stiles. "I thought about that, too."

"Think it would work?"

"Only one way to find out," he says, though he's already decided that would probably end in tears and death.

"Ehhh hold up a sec." Stiles puts a hand on his arm as though to halt him even though Derek hadn't moved. He looks at Stiles then. "Maybe we should... talk to a few more people about this first. Get some second or third opinions? Because, look, man, no offense, but your plans have a way of, how do I put this, not working at all. You are the _Wile E. Coyote_ of werewolves. Seriously. Who ever thinks strapping themselves to a rocket is a good idea? Don't get me wrong, I feel for the guy and it's really not fair that the Roadrunner can defy gravity and the laws of physics, but you just know the coyote is never gonna catch a break, to the point where it is _painful_ to watch."

Derek yanks his arm from Stiles, and glares at him.

"Sorry," Stiles says, though he doesn't particularly sound it. "I mean, it's obvious that you're intelligent and probably hiding a deeply artistic soul under all that—" He waves a hand at Derek. "But your track record is terrible. And normally I'm awesome at planning. Top notch, if I do say so myself, but I'm kind of—" He runs both hands through his hair; dust motes swirl around him in the streaks of sunlight from the caved in ceiling. "Let's just say I haven't been in the best state of mind lately. So I think we should hold off on renting that ACME flamethrower, just for a little while."

Derek wants to be annoyed, he _is_ annoyed, but Stiles looks frazzled, almost unkempt, weary and ragged. His face is more gaunt than Derek remembers; his eyes look even bigger, brighter. The kind of eyes that hold fathomless worlds within. Beneath the scents of earth and grass surrounding them, he can smell Stiles's sweat and skin and Irish Spring. Standing so close, in this confined space, that indefinable heat thrums through Derek's body again, rigid and crackling like a lightning rod that's been struck. Derek cuts his eyes at the base of the Nemeton; it stares back at him, as innocuous as a dead plant can be.

"Come on." Derek pushes past Stiles toward the crumbling exit. He needs out.

"Oh, yeah, good," Stiles says behind him. "It was starting to get super claustrophobic in here. Not that I generally have a problem with tight spaces—" A coughed, choking sound escapes him. "I mean, uh..."

Derek pulls himself up easily, and looks back to see Stiles struggling, loose dirt sliding out from under his hands and sneakers. Derek reaches down and hauls Stiles up, and he still manages to stumble once he's on solid ground. He lands face-first in Derek's chest, uses Derek's shoulders for leverage, fingers curling in the collar of his open coat. He stands steady, balance caught, face bare inches from Derek's. It's no effort at all to touch their mouths together; not even a thought in Derek's head, it just happens.

"Oh," Stiles exhales surprise against Derek's lips, and Derek leaves no space or time for much else. His tongue takes advantage of Stiles's open mouth and is welcomed inside. His hands slip around Stiles's waist, enfolding him even closer. He can taste the blood pounding in Stiles's lips with his racing pulse.

Overwhelming warmth engulfs him. Not like fire, not at all, but an all-over, full-body tingle, almost buoyant. Derek feels light, and he lifts Stiles up with him, a hand on his upper thigh to raise it level with Derek's hip. A soft whimper from Stiles drops register fast into a low moan. The heat intensifies, pooling between Derek's legs. Stiles rolls against him with each swell. His back hits something hard — the trunk of a tall tree — and breath puffs out of him and into Stiles. Their lips are still touching, just barely, too close to see each other clearly, but Stiles has his eyes closed anyway.

"Man, I half convinced myself I made that part up," Stiles whispers, his lip catching on Derek's with every syllable. Derek pushes in, kisses him again. A little part of him claws at the back of his mind, but the scent surrounding him overrides his control, and he's powerless to stop.

_Powerless._

Derek draws back from the kiss, far enough to focus on Stiles's eyes, now open and staring right back at him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" asks a lost, familiar voice across the clearing, snapping their attention from each other. They both turn to look. She's standing there, between the trees, her hair a dark curtain past her shoulders, and her eyes flash — not alpha red like the last time he saw her, but beta gold. "You should've told me, Derek," she says, and then she's gone.

"Holy shit," Stiles gasps, tripping to get both feet on the ground under him and still clutching to Derek's arms. "You saw that, too, right?" In his peripheral vision he can see Stiles watching him, but all Derek can do is nod, transfixed. His hands fall away from their grip on Stiles's body to hang loosely at his sides. "Was that..."

"Laura." Derek's voice cracks. The place she was standing is empty, the grass isn't even disturbed. Derek remembers her scent to this day, remembers them all, individually and as a pack, but there's not a trace.

"That for real just happened," Stiles says, but quietly as though talking to himself. "I didn't hallucinate that part, either." He's moving, walking a few steps one way then back, almost in a circle. "Unless this is all a hallucination. Maybe you're not even here. Nobody else thinks you're here." He spins and waves his hand expansively at Derek. "Maybe I didn't tell them I saw you because deep down I know you're not even really here at all." He squints at Derek.

Derek steps up to him and flicks him on the forehead.

"Ow!"

"I'm not a hallucination."

Stiles rubs his forehead, but he looks thoughtful. He turns those bright, questioning eyes on Derek. "Then that was real."

Derek's eyes drop to Stiles's mouth, can almost still feel it warm and wet on his, Stiles's fingers in his hair, body hot and hard rubbing against him. He can still smell Stiles's arousal, even through the spike of fear and residual anxiety, and Stiles is watching him, eyeing his face and lips and hands. His hands that were on Stiles a moment ago, his waist and ass, holding him as close as he could.

Backing up, Derek points at the Nemeton. "It's that. It's messing with us."

"I wasn't—"

"Just get out of here, Stiles," Derek says, cutting harshly through the cold winter air. The sun is already sinking below the tree line. "And stay away from it until… until we can figure this out." He hears the tremor in his own voice, and Stiles doesn't move. " _ **Go!**_ " Derek roars at him and he flinches back.

"And don't tell anyone I'm here!" Derek calls back over his shoulder as he hurries off in the opposite direction to try and get as far away as possible.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Friday, after school Lydia is finally ready to talk about what happened. Not that it's all that illuminating.

"You've been kind of, uh..." Stiles rarely struggles for words, but he's trying to be sensitive here and doesn't want to go calling her the town whackjob again.

"The term you're looking for is _non compos mentis_ ," she informs them in that superior way only she can, even when discussing her own mental state. "And, yes. Clearly."

"So you still don't remember anything?" asks Scott.

"Do you think I haven't been trying?"

Allison gently puts a hand on Lydia's arm. "Of course not. We know you're trying. It's just…" Allison sighs and — Stiles would never in a million years refer to Allison as _helpless_ , but the look she gives Scott then is plainly begging him to take it from there.

"You guys remember Mr. Baxter?" Scott asks. He looks at each of them and, seeing the 'no's written on their faces, clenches his jaw, eyes widening in incredulity. "He was the janitor here? He worked here for, like, ten years? Last year Peter killed him that night we were all trapped in the school?!" he hisses the last part, keeping his voice low even though the four of them are alone in an empty classroom.

"Ah yes, such fond memories to look back on once we graduate," says Lydia.

"If we graduate," Stiles adds, glibly. There's no mistaking the terror in her eyes. He wouldn't have seen it a year ago, wouldn't have seen past the façade, but he knows her now, and he won't begrudge her the need to cover up that fear with jokes and attitude.

"Scott, tell them the rest," Allison urges, eyeing them with annoyance.

"We saw him," Scott says. "In the boiler room." Lydia stares blankly at him, and Stiles bets the expression is mirrored on his own face.

"He means we saw him today. Just this morning," Allison clarifies, and a sinking sensation settles in Stiles's stomach. "I didn't recognize him, but Scott did."

"Not at first. He was just there and then gone. He told us kids to get out of there and then—" Scott makes a gesture with his hands like _poof_. "But I remembered him afterwards; it was definitely him."

"So, what?" Lydia looks to each of them. "You're saying the school is haunted? Are we really surprised at this point?"

"Ahhh I might have something to add to that," Stiles says, raising his hand. They all turn to look at him. "I didn't say anything before because—" He stops and narrows his gaze at Scott and Allison. "What were you two doing in the boiler room?"

"Talking," Allison says firmly, but she averts her eyes quickly. Lydia smirks. Scott sends BFF eyebrow telepathy at Stiles meaning he'll get to hear about it later, so Stiles lets it go.

He takes a deep breath and tells them about Heather. Scott rubs his shoulder kindly, and says, "I'm sorry, man." Lydia gives him a long, measured look that Stiles has no idea how to decipher; he files it away for later analysis.

Allison chews thoughtfully on her lip. "It's not about the school, then. Or Mister...?"

"Baxter," Scott says, exasperated.

"This has to do with us, specifically," Allison continues.

"We don't know that," Lydia says, and Stiles pipes up with his agreement, even though he's pretty sure it does have to do with them. It's just not _only_ them.

He doesn't tell them about seeing Laura in the woods. If he did, he'd have to tell them about Derek being back in town (because Derek's sister wasn't there for Stiles) and Derek asked him not to. Normally, Stiles would be like _screw that_ and tell them anyway, but… still, he doesn't.

"Deaton told me to bring you by," Scott says to Lydia. "He might have a way to recover your memories."

Stiles double-takes at Scott. "When did you talk to Deaton?"

"Yesterday when I went to the clinic for work. I was gonna ask you to come with me, but."

But Stiles wasn't around because he was in the woods making out with Derek again. He feels his face grow warm and hopes the others don't notice. Not only has his tongue touched Derek's tongue, but now his dick has _totally_ touched Derek's dick. Through clothing, but still. The closest he's ever gotten to that with anyone is... well, that other time he was on the floor on top of Derek. Huh. But they were paralyzed and couldn't feel anything so it doesn't count. Also, dicks had only touched thighs at that point. In the woods, though, there was _major_ feeling. And groping. And kissing. With _intent_.

That's another thing he is definitely not mentioning. That and the fact that throughout the day he could've sworn he'd felt Derek lurking, which isn't outside the realm of normal for Derek, but nobody else seemed to have noticed.

"No one is dunking me in ice water," Lydia says primly.

"Pretty sure that's what started all this," Stiles mutters. He doesn't regret what they did, what they'd _had_ to do, because he would and will forever do anything to save his dad.

But there's no denying that they messed with something and now there are consequences.

"You opened the door."

Stiles, Scott, and Allison all snap their attention to Lydia. She spoke, but now she's just staring vacantly, like a statue. It's only barely perceptible that she's even breathing, but the very air around her hums.

"What?" Hesitantly, Allison approaches her, stretching a hand out to her shoulder.

"Allison, don't." The words are out before Stiles realizes he's speaking.

"Lydia?" Allison says, fingers paused midair a few inches from her.

Lydia blinks. Her eyes dart to each of them. "What?"

They exchange weighty looks, and Scott says, with some finality, "Deaton will have a better idea what to do."

Most students have gone by the time they make it out to the parking lot, which is always a good thing because if you aren't the first one out of the building and in your car then you're doomed to sit and wait, gridlocked, for at least twenty minutes just to get out of the lot. Allison's car is close to the front entrance of the school, while Stiles's Jeep is way at the other end near the lacrosse field. (Fortunately there's no practice today.) It's when he looks out toward his Jeep, still digging his keys out of his pocket, that Stiles sees a dark figure waiting at the tree line in the distance.

"Shit!" He stops abruptly and spins around, hoping to block the others' view.

"What? What's wrong?" asks Scott, forehead wrinkled.

"Nothing. I mean, I forgot something," Stiles says, hoping to God Scott's too confused to focus his senses further outward. So far, he hasn't detected Derek's presence. "Uh, Scott, you and Lydia ride with Allison, and I'll meet you guys there. Okay? Okay!" Stiles pushes Scott back over to Allison's car and waits for him to get in. He waves enthusiastically as they drive off, then runs back into the building in case any of them turns back to check. He hurries through the halls and hangs a left out the side door past the gym. Derek's still there on the other side of the playing fields, but he's slipped back a little to hide in the trees.

"Dude, if you don't want people to know you're here," Stiles says under his breath as he makes his way across the field, "then you shouldn't show up where people will most definitely see you."

Derek simply stands there, watching him, with his hands in his coat pockets. Huh, it's not leather; he's wearing a charcoal pea coat. Stiles hadn't really taken notice before, what with the nuclear blast knocking him to the ground and then all the kissing and running and making out and grinding and being left in the middle of the woods with the most confusing boner, but it's the same coat he was wearing then, too.

"They've found something," Derek says, even though it should be a question considering the way his eyes flick past Stiles's shoulder to indicate he means Scott and the others.

"Uh, not really." Stiles stops a few feet in front of him. "Well, the good and/or bad news is that it's not just us." Derek raises his eyebrows in question, so Stiles elaborates. "Whatever happened at the Nemeton that night, what Lydia did, it's not just affecting us. You and me, that is."

At that, Derek's stance changes, shoulders tensing and spine going rigid. "How do you mean?"

"With the, you know, seeing people. People who are… no longer with us?" He gestures vaguely with his hand, then rubs it over his hair. 

Derek's face is stonier than ever, but his focus sharply on Stiles. "That's all?"

He's never noticed, before, the color of Derek's eyes; he always kind of thought they were light brown, but they're not. They're kind of hazel, but with gray-blue tones. Stiles averts his gaze when he realizes he's been staring into Derek's eyes way too long.

He clears his throat, says, "That's _all_? Isn't that kind of a lot? We're seeing—" Stiles tightens his lips a moment, breathes through his nose. "Ghosts, man. The recently deceased."

"There has to be something else," Derek says quietly more to himself than to Stiles, eyes on the ground but unfocused. Stiles feels a strong urge to reach for him, touch him, something. He shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

"We're going to Deaton to see if he can make Lydia remember. You could come?" Stiles offers, not sure if he wants Derek to accept or if he's hoping for the opposite. "This is the third time it's happened. The third—ghost, or whatever. That we know of."

"What do you mean, the third?" Derek asks, eyes sharp again, hardened at Stiles. "How do you know about that?"

"About what?" Stiles asks. "I'm talking about today, Scott and Allison saw one in the school. And yesterday, we both saw—" He cuts himself off, unable to say her name and put that pained expression back on Derek's face. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "And the night before, when I got home I saw a friend—this girl I used to know. Who... died. Back in September."

Derek looks away, that pained expression on his face anyway. They won't be forgetting what happened last September any time soon.

"In my room," Stiles continues, "she was there and then gone. I thought I was just, you know, nuts, but if I'm nuts then we all are." He laughs, humorless.

Derek starts forward, as though to come to Stiles, but stops abruptly like he's been caught and reeled back by an invisible line. His hands bulge in his coat pockets like maybe he's clenching his fists.

Stiles looks back up to his eyes, flinty in the afternoon sun. "What did you think I was talking about?"

Derek meets his gaze, silent for a long moment, before he looks off into the trees. "After I left you and Lydia, I went back," he says. "Jennifer appeared. I wasn't sure if... like you said, imagining things."

"Jennifer? AKA my ex-fake English teacher? AKA the Darach? That Jennifer?"

"Or whatever her name was," Derek mutters.

And… oh. Right. That was a thing. That they had. They had a thing.

"What did she... do? I mean, did she say anything?" Stiles asks, because this can't get any more awkward and there are other, bigger issues. That makes four. Four times. Four ghosts. It's beyond a pattern now.

Instead of answering, Derek starts walking backward into the woods. "You'd better go catch up to them, before you miss anything important," he says, then spins around and picks up his pace, silently slinking between the trees.

Stiles takes a step forward, like his feet think they're going to go after Derek, but he forces them to stay. He can't stop himself from calling out to Derek's back, though. "So, wait, are we really not—"

"What?" asks Derek, facing him again from almost fifty feet away now.

Are they _really_ not going to mention the kissing? Ever? Derek doesn't even look interested or curious, his face completely placid.

Stiles shakes his head, and turns around back towards his Jeep. "Nothing. Never mind," he says quietly, but he knows Derek can still hear him.

 

 

He arrives at the clinic about ten minutes after the others, but it's not like he really missed anything anyway. Scott's boss gives them a whole pile of useless, as far as Stiles is concerned. He sets Lydia up with some meditation techniques, supposedly to help her channel her inner goddess and become one with the divine. (Deaton didn't use those words; Stiles replaced his cryptic bullshit with something more entertaining when he couldn't take it any longer.)

He's eighty-nine percent sure that Deaton wouldn't do anything more if he had all the details, but it's still itching underneath Stiles's skin to tell them. He doesn't even know why he's keeping Derek's secret anyway; it's not like the jerk would do the same for him. And Stiles shouldn't. He shouldn't _care_ that Derek asked him not to tell, that for whatever reason Derek isn't ready for anyone to know he's back. If he's even really _back_. Maybe he'll just disappear again without a word and they'll never know. That was his plan to begin with, wasn't it? To just come and go as he pleased without a care for anyone else.

Well, that's fine then. He can just go. It's not like they need him; he's never very helpful. Derek causes more problems than he ever fixes. And so what if Derek kissed him? Derek's not Lydia. He's not even Danny, who Stiles actually likes (but not _like_ likes even if he's maybe had one or two dreams about him). He should just _screw_ Derek. Or—

Wow. Yeah. That… that would be awesome actually.

"Stiles. Stiles!" Scott's face is right in front of his, all downturned mouth and furrowed brow. "Are you okay?"

Stiles blinks, jerking back from him and suddenly remembering where he is. He's in the animal clinic with Scott, Lydia, Allison, and Dr. Deaton. And they're all staring at him.

"What? Fine," he says, quickly.

"You spaced out, man," says Scott, still looking concerned.

"Yeah, no, I'm good," Stiles tells him, flashing a grin at all of them. He should just say that Derek is here. Derek is back in town. Derek is staying at a motel out by the highway…

"Missed my Adderall today," Stiles says, instead, standing quickly and backing out through the door to the clinic lobby. "Hey, Scott, can you, uh, can you get a ride with Allison? I have to, um. I have to run an errand before I head home."

 

* * *

 

Derek knows who's approaching before the incessant pounding on the door even begins. He considers pretending he's not here, but knows in his bones that that won't work. Not with Stiles.

He swings the door open, and Stiles falls inward before catching himself on the doorframe. Derek clutches the doorknob to keep from reaching out and helping.

"You're a jerk," Stiles spits at him, eyes blazing. He pushes himself upright, one hand on the doorframe still.

"What are you doing here?" asks Derek, wearily. Stiles's mouth opens to speak, but then just _stays_ open, eyes trailing down Derek's chest. Derek feels his nipples harden — from the frigid outside air — and crosses his arms over his naked torso. "How did you know where I was?" he asks, more harshly.

Stiles blinks and refocuses on Derek's face. "Uh, you told me, dumbass."

"I mean which room."

"Your stupid car is parked right out front and this is the only room with a light on." Stiles points a thumb over his shoulder at Derek's Toyota sitting innocently next to his Jeep. "And you're a jerk."

"So you said."

"Seriously. You just show up and boom! Everything goes to shit," Stiles says, and Derek tries to hide his flinch. He's not sure he's successful, but Stiles seems too worked up to notice anyway as he steamrolls right on. "Making me lie to Scott, who is my alpha now, and yeah, I'm not a hundred percent on what that means _for me_ exactly, but he's also my best friend and I just got _done_ lying to the people I care about and now you're here—"

"Stiles—"

"No! You don't get to interrupt me. You don't get to just blow back into town and take over again."

Warily, Derek surveys the empty parking lot, and glances to either side of his door at all the darkened rooms. His _is_ the only one occupied on this floor. There's a couple staying on the second floor, about four rooms down; he only knows this because they are really, _really_ loud. Other than that, the place is virtually empty. But they're on a main highway and cars do drive by semi-frequently. Not to mention the manager's office has a prime view of the doors to every room; the clerk could easily spot Stiles out here making a scene, and decide to call the cops.

He's still ranting, red in the face and arms flailing, "—telling me I can't say anything and then you just _leave me there_ —"

Before he can even really think about it, Derek grabs a handful of Stiles's jacket and yanks him inside. The momentum propels Stiles forward, off-balance, to crash into Derek's face. That warm, wet mouth sucks Derek's bottom lip in, and long, wiry arms wind around his shoulders.

"You're such an asshole," Stiles bites into Derek's mouth. "You can't just kiss me and expect me to forget about it." Their lips never stop touching, and Stiles is _still_ talking. "Even if it was a mistake, even if you changed your mind, you could just _say_ so. I'm not fragile; I can take it."

"It wasn't—" Derek manages before Stiles smashes their lips together again.

"Good." His fingers are tangled in Derek's hair now, palms sweaty on Derek's neck. "'Cuz, just because I never thought about it doesn't mean I never thought about it and your hands are _huge_ ," he says in one long rush, and Derek realizes his hands are holding Stiles around the waist, leaving no space between their bodies.

Absolutely. No. Space.

Stiles is hard. And so is Derek.

He tries to remember what he was saying, mumbles, "Stiles—" between kisses, "we are—"

"Yeah," Stiles moans into his mouth, his knee coming up around Derek's hip like before and he tries to remember why he was protesting this, but it's all gone. His head is filled with scent and heat, his pulse throbbing in his dick. He hooks his hands underneath Stiles's thighs and _lifts_ , finally kicking the door shut to the outside world behind them.

Stiles makes a noise of surprise and holds on tighter, squeezing both legs into Derek's sides. It's barely three steps to the bed; Derek crashes onto it because he can't see where he's going, and lands on top of Stiles. The impact pushes his groin into Stiles's, and they bounce with the mattress. Stiles rolls his hips in jerky little circles, his hands scrabble down Derek's back to the waistband of his jeans and _under_. He squeezes Derek's ass, scooching up the bed and taking Derek with him until they're lying on it fully.

Derek's face is buried in Stiles's neck, breathing wetly into his sweaty skin. It's sensory overload, blood pounding in surround sound. Stiles's shirts are rucked up to his armpits exposing taut skin that quivers beneath Derek's touch. (He doesn't recall putting his hands there.) Stiles's pants and underwear have slipped down his hips and nearly off his ass, caught on the drag of the scratchy bedspread, and the wet, dripping head of his cock is poking out, leaving a mess of pre-come on Stiles's stomach.

A moment later, Stiles's hands are gone from Derek's ass and his jeans are open and shoved down as well. Long fingers slide over his dick, lingering with his foreskin, and Stiles says, "Oh, hey," in wonder.

Derek raises himself up just enough to look into Stiles's eyes, now looking back at him. He leans in and kisses Stiles again, softly this time, rolling his hips to counter those little circular motions, smoothing it out and speeding it up. He shoves Stiles's pants down further, out of the way, and his dick slides into the crease between leg and hip, just enough slickness to ease the friction. They kiss until they can't anymore. Stiles's mouth falls open wide, panting, fingers digging transient bruises into Derek's back. He tenses up, shuddering, his pulse skyrocketing, and groans when he comes. Derek swipes his hand across Stiles's belly, coating his palm, and jerks himself three, four times. A howl rises out of the depths of him, up his throat, and he bites his own forearm to muffle the sound.

With aftershocks still sparking up and down his spine and buzzing under his skin, Derek shifts to his side on the bed next to Stiles. He keeps his eyes closed, listening to the sounds around him: first and foremost, Stiles's quick, uneven breaths matching his own, and their heartbeats running a race; beneath that the monotonous drone of the mini-fridge in the corner of the room; beyond the room, he picks up the couple on the second floor going at it again, and the _whoosh-wish_ of traffic on the highway.

He realizes that his hand is on Stiles's stomach, sticky in a pool of their combined come. Derek peels away, rolling onto his back and putting some distance between them.

"That was awesome," Stiles breaks the silence, breathless. Derek's afraid to turn his head and look at Stiles's face, to _see_ the evidence of what he's just done.

"Oh holy God," he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut tight.

"Right?" And he feels Stiles turn toward him, can almost picture the satisfied grin on his face.

Derek twists away and off the bed in one fluid movement without looking, tugging his jeans back up over his ass and inadvertently wiping come all over them. "Shit," he murmurs to himself, "it hit so fast."

"Hey I can probably last longer next time," Stiles jokes, rustling around in the sheets on the bed. Derek's breath hitches, but he straightens his shoulders even as the gnawing in his gut worsens.

"There won't _be_ a next time." He finally turns around to stare down at Stiles. "This will never happen again."

The lopsided smile melts off Stiles's face as he sits up. Or tries to sit up, but his pants are down around his thighs and sliding down even further the more he moves. Derek averts his eyes.

"I shouldn't have let this happen in the first place. Jesus, I have better control than that," Derek mutters, running his clean hand through his hair; it's already sticking out all over the place from sweat and Stiles's fingers.

"What can I say, I'm irresistible," Stiles says, but his voice quavers, scent souring, mingling with the sweat and, _god_ , the stink of sex permeating the entire room.

Derek tries holding his breath to block it out, but it's everywhere, on his skin, in his hair. It's _inside_ him now. "This was a mistake, Stiles. A—an accident. This, and what happened in the woods—"

"When you kissed me."

"I didn't! That wasn't me."

"What?" Stiles has an expressive face; it shows _everything_ , and it swims from surprise through hurt and confusion, right past shock and into anger in less than a second. "What, you saying you have a doppelgänger running around out there? Because what the hell was just now?"

"It wasn't me. This wasn't _us_ , okay? We weren't in control."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Stiles asks, and Derek doesn't miss the tiny catch in his voice or the renewed pounding of his heart.

But he ignores it. "In the woods, Stiles. That force, or whatever it was that hit us. It did something to us. It made us…" Derek trails off. He can't even say it.

Stiles is staring at him, and then he laughs, a small, sunken sound, his face contorting. "Right. Yeah. Of course," he says, worming his way off the opposite side of the bed. He wipes the mess off his stomach with a corner of the bedspread and pulls his pants up as he stands. He doesn't look at Derek at all. "Of course that's the only explanation. Why else would you want to sleep with me."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant." He looks at Derek then, right in the eye and holds it. His shirts are all askew, jacket rumpled, and hair a total mess. Derek notices all these things because he can't look into Stiles's eyes. He hears Stiles swallow, then walk over to the door, calmly, steadily, and pull it open. Derek's gut twists.

"Stiles—"

Stiles spins around, mouth a sneer. "You know what? Screw you! That's what I came here to say in the first place." He stomps out, slamming the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

He fumbles his keys and drops them once while trying to jam them into the door of his Jeep. His hands are not shaking, his heart is _not_ beating out of his chest, and he is _definitely not fucking crying._

A moment later, Stiles is sitting in the driver's seat with both hands on the wheel, in the parking lot of Derek's stupid motel, staring at the crumbling bricks on the side of the building. His eyes sting and his vision keeps blurring. It must have been only a few seconds, but he feels like he's been sitting there for hours. Days. Time is foggy right now and Stiles is busy concentrating on his breathing.

He just had sex.

He just touched someone, was touched by someone, for the first time. He just lay in a bed with another person and came like there was no tomorrow. He should feel elated. He should be _crowing_! He should want to shout it out right now, call Scott, and tell him every single detail.

Except he can't. He can't tell anyone.

He sucks in a sharp, shaky breath that _hurts_ just as the door to Derek's room opens. Stiles reverses too quickly, almost stalls out, but peels away from the building and out of the parking lot so fast his tires squeal. He only catches a glimpse of Derek, stepping out the door, through all the kicked up dust and gravel in his side view mirror.

 

 

He's resolved to rat Derek out to Scott. Not—not the _them_ stuff. Just that he's in town and he's seen the ghosts, too. Stiles should have just done this at the start; he's so sick of keeping secrets. So when Scott calls him Sunday morning and says to meet at his house, Stiles pulls himself together, eats a real meal for breakfast, and heads on over.

After getting home Friday night, Stiles took the longest shower of his life and went right to bed. He spent all of Saturday in his room, _not_ feeling sorry for himself, and catching up on his reading. His dad was working during the day, but when he popped his head into Stiles's bedroom around dinnertime, Stiles told him he wasn't hungry and remained in his room the rest of the night under the guise of doing homework.

Now, as he runs up the steps to Scott's front door, the simmering anger has ramped up and boiled away all those feelings of hurt and rejection. He thinks he might punch Derek's stupid face if he sees him again.

He doesn't.

Instead, he skids to a halt in Scott's living room at the sight of Derek standing across from him by the window. He's leaning casually against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his stupid pea coat and one ankle crossed over the other. He barely gives Stiles even the smallest glance before turning to stare out the window again.

"Stiles!" Scott comes up behind him and claps him on the shoulder. "Look who's back!" He's grinning, gesturing into the living room with two soda cans in his hand.

"Yeah." Stiles nods dumbly. "I see him." He averts his eyes to the cans of Sprite in Scott's hand. "One of those for me?"

"Oh, sure," says Scott, handing him one. He offers the other to Derek, who declines, then tosses it to Isaac sitting on the couch. Stiles hadn't even noticed him there. "Allison's on her way over," Scott is saying, returning from the kitchen again with a soda for himself. "I, uh, I dunno if Lydia's coming or not. There's not really anything new to discuss. On her end, anyway." He flops down next to Isaac, leaving both Stiles and Derek standing awkwardly on opposite sides of the room.

Apparently, Derek sought out Scott this morning to inform the current alpha of Beacon Hills that he was in town. As a beta on the way to omega passing through a pack's territory, Derek says it was the courteous thing to do. (He says it in a way that implies he always meant to do that even though Stiles knows differently.) Scott, bless his eternally magnanimous soul, of course tells Derek that he would never have to become omega.

Stiles, contrary to his very nature, remains silent.

Derek also informed them that he, too, has seen a couple of people who should no longer be walking and talking doing just that. Judging by Scott and Isaac and how utterly nonchalant they are, he didn't mention anything about Stiles or being in the woods with Stiles or kissing Stiles or rubbing one out all over Stiles.

So, there's that.

If Lydia ever remembers that Derek was there at the Nemeton right before she passed out then this will all surely blow up in Stiles's face, but as of now nobody knows and they don't need to.

Allison lets herself in, which… is a new development. For years Stiles has been the only non-McCall to walk right in without knocking, but now it seems Scott's got an open-door policy for everyone. And hey, if you're a werewolf orphan, you can just move right in and enjoy middle-of-the-night bro-time! Stiles doesn't dwell on it, though. Allison lingers in the entryway, looking more uncomfortable than Stiles feels, so that's something. (He can't tell if it's because of Derek, or because of the boyfriends past and future. Or present? Stiles isn't sure what's going on there, to be honest; he's got other things on his mind.)

They fill Allison in as briefly as possible, and Scott shrugs. "It doesn't feel like we're in any immediate danger," he says. "So far, it's just, like, apparitions or whatever. Lydia's working on it, and until we know more I don't see that there's much else we can do. Maybe just stay away from the Nemeton for now."

Derek shifts his weight and crosses his arms over his chest. He looks like he wants to say something, but he never actually opens his mouth. There's a boatload of tension in the room, and it's not all coming from Derek and Stiles. Actually, Stiles doesn't think anyone is picking up on _any_ of that tension, which he would find insulting if he weren't grateful. Derek's finally looking at him, _staring_ at him, with his pretty, watchful eyes, face as inscrutable as ever.

The other three occupants of the room have their own telepathic communications going on, but they seem to be speaking the same language at least. A minute later, Allison goes to leave and Isaac gets up to follow her. Scott's busy contemplating the weave of his jeans or something, but Stiles doesn't miss Isaac's guilty expression when he glances back over his shoulder one last time.

Derek makes a hasty exit next, but pauses long enough to say ( _to Scott_ ) that he'll be sticking around for a bit if they need his help with anything.

Stiles refuses to even look at him this time.

 

 

For six whole days, he doesn't see Derek at all. He does, however, see three new ghosts around town. They aren't anyone that Stiles recognizes, and they look just like ordinary people in ordinary places. But he knows they're ghosts — not because they appear out of thin air, or disappear this time, because they don't do those things; they're just there. They look solid, the air doesn't chill in their presence, and lights don't flicker on and off. None of the things he's seen in movies, or read about in stories of hauntings.

Stiles just knows. He feels it deep down, in his gut. Or, like, his spleen. (He's not thinking about his heart or any darkness it may carry.) The other people, the very much alive people, around at the time don't seem to actually _see_ the ghosts, but they subtly avoid being near them — sidestepping when there's no other reason to, glancing over their shoulders with confused expressions on their faces.

The weird is ramping up in Beacon Hills, and people are starting to take notice. Even if they don't realize exactly what's going on.

Stiles goes to Deaton on his own. Dealing with the man is always a trial of patience and an exercise in harnessing his qi or whatever, but Stiles has dealt with Finstock for three years running, and Scott a bit longer than that, so he comes out of it relatively unscathed. And several pounds of potential knowledge heavier.

It's therefore inevitable, really, that Derek is coming toward the animal clinic just as Stiles is walking out the door. His steps falter, and so do Derek's; a drawn out moment of staring ensues.

Finally, Derek jerks his chin at the building. "Is he in?"

"Uh, yeah," Stiles answers and steps out of the way of the door. "Something new happen?" He can't recall Derek ever voluntarily going to Deaton for anything. Like Stiles, Derek doesn't seem to trust the man all that much.

But Derek shakes his head. "I thought he might have something, books or—or anything, on the Nemeton. I don't remember much about it," he says, almost absently, with a jerky head-tilt like he's trying to shake the memories loose.

"Oh, well, get in line, then; I just cleaned him out," Stiles says, hitching his backpack up on his shoulder, heavy with the weight of every book he could weasel out of the vet. Derek frowns, brow creasing.

"I could take half, and you take half; we'll get through them quicker that way," he says, hands coming out of his pockets like Stiles will just fork the books over right there.

"No way," Stiles says, clutching the strap of his backpack more tightly. "Do you know how difficult it was to get him to part with these? I'm not letting them out of my sight. Not that I'm afraid Deaton will use The Force against me or anything, but I'm also not willing to take that risk."

"Fine." Derek sighs through his nose, a visible cloud in the cold afternoon air. "Then we can go through them together at your house."

"Uh, no? My dad's home. He might be all up to date on this werewolf crap, but that doesn't mean I want him involved in this. Also, he still doesn't like you; I highly doubt he'll be thrilled having you in his house."

Derek's eyes flick away, the corners of his mouth turning down. Then he makes an annoyed grunt. "So, don't tell him I'm there."

_Unbelievable._ Stiles laughs, gusty and a little hysterical. "Did you not hear me before when I said I am so over lying for you?" Then he mutters under his breath, "Or are you pretending that _whole day_ just didn't happen?"

"Stiles." Derek says his name like he's said it a hundred times before, tired and impatient, but with a hint of... regret?

"Look," Stiles cuts in because he _is_ over it. All of it. "You want the books, fine. But we can't go to my house. Are you still staying at the same skeevy motel?" he asks, and waits for Derek's reluctant nod. "Okay, then I'll meet you there." He stalks over to his Jeep and climbs in without waiting for a reply.

He swings by the drive-thru on his way, he even gets extra tacos and a drink for Derek, and by the time he pulls up in front of the motel room door, Derek's already inside. The room is small, like _tiny_. Stiles, understandably, hadn't really noticed last time. There's barely enough space to walk between the dresser and the bed. There's no desk or table to work at. There aren't even any chairs for Stiles to sit on. His choices are those two square feet of floor in front of the bathroom door, or the bed. Next to Derek.

The bed, on which only a week ago he'd lost most of his virginity.

"Well," says Stiles. "This isn't awkward at all."

Out of the corner of his eye, because he can't bring himself to look directly yet, Stiles sees Derek stiffen and his nostrils flare, but Derek says nothing. Stiles glances down at the bed again — it's neatly made up, like maid service had just come by. Or it hasn't been slept in at all. A thought strikes him and he can't help but wonder if they changed the coverlet, that hideous patterned bedspread he'd wiped his jizz on before he left. They change the sheets, surely, even in a crap hole like this, but did Derek request all new bedding? Or is he stuck with the one that must _reek_ of Stiles?

His face burns suddenly, and he can feel his heart rate kick up, so he spins away from the bed and sets the food bags out on the dresser. "I hope you're not going to make a fuss about eating in your be—room. In the room. Because I'm starving and I got you three soft tacos, too. And a Coke. But if you don't want them, I'll eat them. Tacos, am I right? You can never eat just ten."

He's babbling. He knows he's babbling, but he's never in his life been able to find his off switch.

"You can eat, I don't care," Derek says behind him. Stiles looks over his shoulder to find him sitting comfortably on the bed, with his back against the headboard. "What books have you got?"

After he dumps his backpack out onto the bed, they divide the books up and begin to read in almost comfortable quiet. Stiles scarfs down his tacos in rapid succession, manfully ignoring any disgusted looks Derek might send his way — tacos are messy; he's got to eat them fast. Derek even eats two of the three Stiles got for him and when Stiles eyes the last one, Derek lets him have it.

A couple hours later, Stiles is lying on his stomach sideways across the foot of the bed, only about halfway through his second book (although, it could be considered his first since he gave up on the previous one about seven pages in) when he hears the gross pop-click of Derek's neck cracking. Stiles looks up at him where he's still leaning against the headboard.

"Dude, that is so bad for you," he says, gesturing to Derek and then his own neck.

"So is this," Derek says, snapping his book shut. "This is useless." He tosses it in the pile next to him.

Stiles rolls onto his side and closes his own book with a sigh. "Yeah, these aren't really telling me anything I didn't already know. That other one was just, like, old folk tales. Could be entertaining if you like stories about farmer's daughters being tricked into wedding demon goats." Derek makes a face at that. Stiles pushes himself up and knee-walks up the bed to reach the pile. "Where's that one with the freaky snake on the cover?"

He has to lean across Derek's legs to reach the pile of books, his knee slips and he skids forward. He's only stopped from taking a header into Derek's lap by strong hands wrapped around his biceps holding him up. They push until Stiles is a bit more vertical, at eye level with Derek. Looking directly into Derek's eyes and being seen in return. He remembers those eyes watching him as heat soared through his body, those eyelashes fluttering when Derek came.

Stiles starts to lean forward, close the distance, zeroed in on Derek's mouth, but his shoulders meet resistance in the way of Derek's hands, stopping him like a force field.

"Wait," Derek says, voice all husky. Stiles waits. Derek stares. His hands are hot through the thin cotton of Stiles's shirt, and his fingers twitch like they aren't sure where to go. When they grip tighter and it feels like Derek is about to pull him closer, Stiles draws away, out of Derek's grasp to sit back on his heels.

"I should probably go. My dad expects me for dinner. He's a little more strict about knowing where I am these days."

Derek closes his eyes like it pains him, says on an exhale, "Because you're sixteen."

"Seventeen, actually," Stiles feels compelled to point out. "I had a birthday while you were gone."

Derek looks up at Stiles beneath his heavy eyebrows, head shaking ever so slightly in exasperation, and Stiles thinks he catches a tiny upward tick at the corner of his mouth. But then Derek rubs both palms over his face, and an awkward knot of tension clenches in Stiles's stomach. He starts to scoot toward the edge of the bed to get up, but something makes him pause.

"What you said, before. About it not being you. Was that…" Stiles releases a breath, shoulders slumping, and stares down at his hands twisting in his lap. "Is that really the only reason that—that you would ever…?" He glances up at Derek's face, and immediately backpedals. "Oh god, never mind. Don't—don't answer that. I don't wanna know."

He shoves himself up off the bed to stand at the foot and scrambles around, gathering up his jacket and his backpack, tries to reach for the books without touching the bed. He can't look at Derek, doesn't want to be in the same room right now, his whole face is flaming with humiliation. He doesn't notice that Derek has clambered off the bed after him and is now blocking the narrow path to the door until there are hands on his.

"Stiles, stop."

"I have to go." He tries to pull away, but Derek holds fast.

"I know. Just listen." Derek waits, still holding him in place, so Stiles nods jerkily without looking at him. "If I said—to answer your question, if I said I don’t know, would you be able to leave it at that?"

His eyes itch and he has to clear his throat before he can answer. "I don't know." Stiles blinks and switches his focus from over Derek's shoulder to his face. "Actually, no. Probably not. I've never been able to let things go."

Derek lifts one eyebrow at him. "I've noticed."

"Why is that the first explanation you came up with then?"

"St—"

"No, really," Stiles cuts him off. "If you don't know, I mean if that isn't the only reas—like, if there was ever or could ever be another reason that you would want to, then why was that your first thought?"

Derek's face is pleading. "I don't—"

"You don't know, right," Stiles says, dropping his eyes to their joined hands. "I really do have to go. My dad will start calling my phone soon and he won't give up until he knows where I am." He tugs his hands until Derek looks down at them, surprised, and lets go.

Derek moves out of the way so that Stiles can go around him. He pulls his backpack open and lays it on the bed, trying to figure out how to fit all these books back in it.

"It just happened really—" Derek's voice breaks the silence. "And it felt so—" He cuts off again, and Stiles looks up at him. Derek has a faraway look in his eyes, before returning his gaze to Stiles. "Have you ever read _A Wrinkle In Time_?"

Thrown, Stiles pauses for a second, letting books drop back to the bed. "Um. Yeah? When I was little." He shuffles his feet on the ratty carpet. "It was one of my mom's favorite books." It was one of the books he'd read to her in the hospital, even after she was beyond hearing him, because it was one of the books she'd read to him every night before bed.

"Mine, too," Derek says, with a soft look of maybe surprise on his face. He shakes his head then and swallows. "You remember when they go to the other planet? The dark planet with the brain on the dais emitting that pulse, forcing everything into the same rhythm?"

Stiles stares at him. Blinks a few times. "You're comparing us making out and... and—" He waves his hand to encompass them and the room and the bed in the center of it. "To a sinister alien force?"

"Replace 'alien' with 'magical' and..." Derek shrugs, and he looks like maybe he feels stupid for saying it out loud now. And he should. That's the dumbest, most insulting thing Stiles has ever heard directed at him.

"Wow," he says, voice wavering, feeling a prick at the back of his eyes. "I mean, okay, if it was only happening out in the woods where the Nemeton is, sure. But it's not, so that explanation doesn't really fly, does it?" His breath comes out stilted and stuttery. "And so what if it was?"

"So what?" asks Derek, incredulous. "You don't care at all about losing your self-control like that?" His hands are outstretched, palms up, in a beseeching pose; Stiles takes it all in, trying to swallow around the huge lump in his throat.

"As I said before," Stiles tells him, mustering his courage to glare Derek right in the eye. "I'm seventeen. I don't have any self-control." But Derek does, Derek _is_ self-control, of course that's important to him and he feels like it was taken from him. Stiles is desperately holding onto his anger, pushing everything else down as far as it will go.

"Come on, Stiles." Derek's voice is soft, almost too gentle. "Didn't it feel strange to you?"

"Well, sure." He shrugs, tamping down on the queasy roll of his stomach. "But I just figured that's because I've never..." he waves again at the room in general, "with anyone before."

Derek's eyes widen fractionally. "You haven't... you'd never..." he stutters. "Not anything?"

"Obviously," Stiles huffs, staring at the corner of the bed where the sheet is pulled taut and about to pop off. Faintly, he hears Derek take a couple steps closer to him.

"It's not. It wasn't. Obvious," Derek clarifies. "I didn't know."

Stiles shrugs, still not looking at him. "Not like it changes anything, right?"

He hears Derek take in a deep breath, feels a hand hovering near his shoulder but never quite touch him. "Doesn't that make it worse?" asks Derek eventually.

At that, Stiles turns toward him. "Worse? Worse than what? From my point of view it—it wasn't bad to begin with," he says, carefully steadying his breathing.

"I mean that your first time was…"

"What? With you?" Stiles says, both hands out like _Behold this man!_ "I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I mean, I'm assuming you've looked in a mirror. You're not a vampire; you have a reflection."

Derek turns his face away and closes his eyes again, like it hurts to look at things. Like it hurts to look at Stiles. "That doesn't make it better if it wasn't..." he says, then turns around completely, putting his back to Stiles.

_Yes it's worse,_ Stiles thinks, with his heart sinking to the floor, that apparently it wasn't just an impulsive action that Derek now regrets, but genuinely something he never wanted in the first place. Stiles is having trouble catching his breath, but it's just that lump still in his throat, not a panic attack. He's not anxious; he's... hollow.

The theme music from _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ whistles out through the silence making Stiles jump. Derek doesn't, but he looks around the room with a comical expression on his face. In other circumstances, Stiles would laugh.

"That's my dad," he says, reaching into his jacket pocket for his phone and cutting the music short. "Hey, Dad," he answers. "Yeah, I'm on my way."

When he'd programmed that into his phone as his father's ringtone, he'd always pictured it going off right in the middle of some big Alpha showdown. It could have been hilarious (if he didn't end up getting killed). He tries to pay attention to his dad, but Derek is now watching him closely.

"Yeah, no," Stiles says into the phone, "I'll be there in, like, ten minutes, I swear. I'm just... uh, I'm just dropping off some books."

"Well, don't get in a hurry, and drive safe," his dad tells him, like he always does, and Stiles says he loves him, like he always does, before he hangs up. He surveys the pile of books, glancing up at Derek a few times, then grabs his backpack and zips it closed.

"Look," Stiles says, "if my dad sees these books he's gonna be all up in my business about it, so, um, so if I leave these here with you, will you—I mean, one: make sure nothing happens to them. But also, uh… you'll still be here tomorrow, right?"

He slings his backpack onto his shoulder, eyeing Derek questioningly. Derek nods, darting his eyes from the pile of books on the bed, to Stiles, to the door, and back.

"Good. Great!" Stiles starts backing toward the door. "Okay. Yeah. You can, uh, you can go through them tonight. Um, if you want." He grasps the doorknob. "And I can just come back after school." He pulls the door open and squeezes out as quickly as he can. But then he pops his head back in for a second to see Derek still standing there. "And we don't have to talk about that other thing, like, ever again. Cool? Okay."

He shuts the door behind him a little louder than he'd intended, and sprints over to his Jeep without a backward glance.

 

* * *

 

During the rest of the week, Stiles comes back to Derek's motel room. For reading. (There are a lot of books, and Derek barely got through three of them that first night.) He skitters past Derek and into the room, and seems to make himself as small as possible, careful not to touch Derek at all. When there's a decent amount of space between them in the small room, Stiles loosens his hunched shoulders and lets his limbs move more freely. That circumspect glint in his eyes softens only marginally. They don't share the bed anymore. That is, when one of them sits to work on the bed, the other absolutely does not. Stiles has taken to perching cross-legged on top of the dresser next to the old, tiny television set with a book propped in his lap.

Derek has never in his life wished harder for more furniture — even when he was squatting in abandoned buildings — because every time he so much as shifts on the bed, Stiles's scent wafts up all around him. He got new bedding from housekeeping after... after. But then Stiles came back. His scent is all over the new bedspread, the pillow he was leaning on, the carpet where he flings his jacket and backpack, Derek's _clothes_. It's inescapable. The whole room is soaking in it, but Derek refuses to mention it because every now and then when they're reading quietly, separately, a fresh wave of arousal emanates from Stiles. When Derek glances up at him, Stiles darts his eyes back to whatever page he's on, his cheeks glowing red and scent souring with embarrassment and... and guilt. And Derek can't bear that. So he pretends not to notice.

Not the easiest thing, either, when that scent of arousal triggers an equal response in his own body. His fingers want to touch skin, skin that Derek knows is soft, although marred in places by the raised flesh of scar tissue and dotted with moles. His hair wants long fingers dragging through it, making his scalp tingle. His nose wants to bury itself in the crook of a neck, _Stiles's_ neck, and just _live there_.

A part of him urges to just skip town again, get as far away as he possibly can. But the dreams that brought him here cling to the insides of his skull, unshakeable. The dreams haven't returned, no longer waking him in the night, but that presence is still there in his mind, in his blood and every nerve ending, telling him he hasn't done what he was called here to do. It would help if it told him what that is exactly.

When Stiles is at school or home or wherever else he goes (Scott's house, judging by the notes of his scent that accent Stiles's own), Derek stays out of his motel room as much as possible. It wouldn't be wise to get too comfortable here. He made that mistake last time, got complacent, thought he could rebuild his life, his home. Every time he settles in for the night, laying his head on the pillow where Stiles once lay, he has to force himself to remember: No. He won't be staying here. This is not home.

While he was away, he didn't let the longing for pack in so strongly; even with Cora around it was muted and manageable. Maybe because the jagged edges of their broken pack bond only scraped and clashed, never fitting quite the way they should. Stiles feels soft, pliable, accepting in comparison. Instead of clanging against him, Stiles eases around the sharpened points of Derek's personality, and pushes in where the spaces feel empty.

Stiles is the only person Derek is interacting with really, so it's not like there's meaning in any of this. Derek is just lonely. Stiles is, too, because everyone is lonely and people reach for the first touch they find.

Of course, even though Stiles is the one who said it, not talking about something is, naturally, impossible for him.

"So... it _is_ possible that you totally kissed me just because you wanted to," Stiles says out of the blue, peeking over the open book on his knee. (Stiles spends a lot of time flipping back and forth between different books and jotting things down in a notebook, but he doesn't share much of it aloud. Derek guesses it's not important enough to break their delicate peace. Unlike uncomfortable questions that he thought they were both actively avoiding.)

Derek raises his eyes from his own book and studies Stiles. "I think it's well established that I'm not the best judge of character," he replies eventually, dropping his gaze and flipping the pages of his book, idly, not actually reading anything. He hears Stiles's soft breath and the rustle of leather bindings on denim.

"So, you w-wanting me is either A: because you've been cursed by a _tree_ ," Stiles says, huffily, masking his emotions with sarcasm. "Or B: because you're an idiot. Yeah, no, that's awesome. That's exactly what every guy wants to hear. Just add that to the long list of things wrong with me."

Derek stops riffling pages and looks over at him again. Stiles has drawn his knees up to his chin, both feet planted on the surface of the dresser in front of him, hiding behind his book. 

"There's nothing wrong with you," Derek tells him, honestly. Earnestly, even. More than he'd like to be. In response, Stiles tilts his head around the edge of the large book he's holding with a _'you've got to be kidding me'_ look on his face. Derek rolls his eyes and tries to find the last page that he actually read. "Fine. There are many things wrong with you, but last time I checked none of them were that you're a mass-murdering psychopath."

A long silence ensues, filled only by the sounds of pages turning too rapidly to be read and the soft, shallow breaths from across the room. Derek feels his ears turning pink, and he's not sure whether it's embarrassment or banked anger. The anger is always there, fermenting with time.

"You got me there," says Stiles after too long, and Derek still doesn't look up. "Guess I'm not really your type, though, huh?" Stiles scratches his neck, the sound rough in Derek's ears.

Paused for a moment, page mid-turn between his fingers, Derek says lowly, "I never thought I had a type." He finds the beginning of the last chapter he remembers absorbing and sets to reading it anew. He glances at Stiles, briefly. "If I do, it's terrible and you should feel glad to not be on that list."

It's a few minutes later, Derek immersed in his reading, thinking the matter settled, when Stiles speaks again.

"So I'm definitely not your type then." Stiles tries to sound offhand, like he doesn't actually care, but he can't hide the note of disappointment. Derek wants to say something, anything, to alleviate that. Platitudes materialize and dissolve on his tongue: plenty of fish, he'll find someone else, someone better, someone worth his time. But he can't even make those sound convincing in his head. Derek thinks they both know that some people are just destined to be alone.

He could tell Stiles to be more discerning. Don't grasp greedily at the first person to give you any attention. Don't want things you know you can never keep.

"How did you know? About Kate. And me." Derek isn't sure where the question came from, or why he'd asked it. Stiles looks just as surprised.

"Oh. Uh," Stiles utters. He licks his lips and readjusts his seat, lets his feet slide off the dresser to dangle below him. "It was something Allison's grandfather said after he—when he let me go. I'm not going to repeat it because it was—" He grimaces, and Derek can guess that whatever Argent would have said about him, or werewolves in general, wasn't flattering or pleasant. "He was talking about Allison and Scott, and his daughter and... and you, I guess. I put the pieces together after that," Stiles finishes quietly, flicking his eyes alternately up at Derek and down at his feet. "At first I thought maybe he meant Peter, but it didn't..." Stiles trails off.

And that makes sense, Derek supposes. He always wondered how much Gerard had to do with what Kate carried out. Was it her plan, or his? Did he order Kate to seduce a sixteen year old werewolf, or did she improvise that? Did it disgust him to think of his daughter touching an animal? Fucking one?

He'll never know, so it's pointless to think about.

Stiles is watching him steadily now. "I'm sorry. For saying what I did. I shouldn't have thrown it in your face like that."

Derek shrugs it off. "Your father was missing."

"That's not an excuse."

"No, it's a perfectly reasonable explanation," Derek says, evenly. "You were scared and angry and your dad was in danger. I understand, Stiles."

Eye contact lasts a few beats too long. Stiles draws in an uneven breath, licking his lips again. "Well, I'm still sorry," he says.

Derek nods. He flips another page, stops again, and looks back at Stiles. "Your friend. The one you saw, who died. Jennifer killed her," he says, and Stiles snaps his head back up. "I'm sorry."

Stiles's breath stops, he holds it and stares.

"Derek, that's—" He chews his lip, then lets his breath out smoothly. "You never know what to say to people when they say that, and you get really sick of it after a while, you know? You can't say it's okay, because it's not. And 'thank you' sounds dumb; you're not grateful that someone is sorry. It's just a thing people say, and I get the meaning and the need behind it." He licks his lips, eyes darting away and back.

"But I don't think that's what you're doing with that here. Derek, that is actually something that wasn't your fault," Stiles says, watching Derek with somber eyes. They turn dark, inward, and he huffs. "Hell, a lot of shit that's happened wasn't really your fault."

Derek waits, motionless, until Stiles looks up at him again.

"So you can be sorry it happened, for me, for her family. I appreciate that, I do," Stiles says. "But don't think anyone blames you. I don't want you to think I blame you."

Derek wants to argue, but he just knows that Stiles won't hear it. He has to clear his throat before speaking, but he manages a quiet, "Okay."

It's easier after that. Not exactly comfortable, but Stiles talks more, moves around the room more freely. He likes to pace while he puzzles things out. Derek is content to sit and watch.

"Okay, listen to this," Stiles says, drumming his feet on the side of the dresser. He has a large, leather-bound book of folklore open on his lap. "' _The above and the below, forever partèd; only now fusèd together on borrowed time. Out on the ebbing borders of lim’nal lands forlorn. No difference ‘twixt mind and matter. Dualities dissolve. Enter: Lords of Chaos. White Hart of the Black Hearted heavily guarded. Dreams within nightmares within dreams within nightmares._ '"

"Cheery," remarks Derek.

"Right?" Stiles says, mouth twisting down. He continues reading down the page. "There's another bit about the sacred grove providing sanctuary and guidance, and something about summoning—" At that he looks up, excited, and meets Derek's eye briefly, before going on. "Summoning the guardian to reveal-slash-lead—I think this is a bad translation—' _lead your destiny._ ' Whatever that means. " _'Shining song, the guardian hails the whispering host, o'er the bridge. Gates closed, the holy chamber holds._ '" He drops the book into his lap. "Well, that was a bust. God, I hate poetry. Why can't they just say what they mean?"

"Then stop reading the book full of poems."

"Well, this one," Stiles says, holding up a different book, "has gross illustrations in it. And a bunch of stuff about blood and sacrifice, which we're well acquainted with, and something about shrines." He tosses it aside and picks up another. "And this one is all _nature_ and _trees_ and _respect the land_ and _healing energies_. I'm gonna say the modern druids weren't using it right if any of this crap is true."

"And there's nothing about ghosts in here," Derek sighs. "Or why only we can see them."

"I am leaning heavily back toward us all being bananapants. In the loony bin, who would you rather share a cell with — me or Scott? Now—" Stiles points at him. "You're gonna say Scott, but I can tell you right now that's a bad plan. Worst morning breath ever." Stiles is grinning at him, and he smells happy despite their frustrations, and at ease in Derek's presence.

And his stupid jokes are back. Derek would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy them, not that he'll ever tell Stiles so.

"Deaton says it's that heart-darkness we've got going on," Stiles says then, more somber. He draws his legs up and wraps his arms around his knees. " _We got a glimpse beyond the veil_. Actually Lydia said that, translating Deaton's mumbo-jumbo. Sounds legit, I guess."

Stiles returns to his book. Every so often he licks his fingertip to turn the pages, small pink triangle of tongue poking out of his soft lips. He leans against the wall, or lounges on the floor, loose-limbed and surprisingly tranquil in his concentration.

The discomfort, now, is all on Derek's end. Stiles is more relaxed than he has been since… since. The arousal is still there, but Stiles doesn't seem terribly embarrassed about it like he was before. He'll even sit on the bed again, at the edge with one leg tucked under him and the other dangling over the side, not close enough to touch, but…

And Derek does want to touch. It isn't just contact, any human contact, that he's craving, but specifically Stiles, tingling under his skin. He doesn't know what this is, even though he has felt it before.

It wasn't magic with Paige.

It wasn't magic with Kate, either, even if it was all based on lies.

He doesn't know what it was with Jennifer.

He's never had any other _relationships_ , and the other people he's been with were… it was just physical. He wasn't lying when he said he didn't have a type. But if he did, Stiles doesn't really fit anyway. He's too young.

While out and about, Derek surreptitiously watches people. He looks at them objectively, in a way he's never been able to view strangers before. Many of them are very attractive, but there's no pull in his gut or groin. No extra thump of his heart. He barely even has to _try_ to be inconspicuous; the people in town seem to be walking around with their eyes willfully shut. Stiles was right, though, that everything feels a little off-kilter.

Ghosts, or apparitions, or whatever, don't appear to be present. At least, Derek doesn't see any. He can feel something, though. A weight on the back of his neck. The echo of a laugh that might be someone crying.

The town, essentially, starts to give him the creeps. (One would think that with all the death and destruction associated with this place in Derek's memory, that wouldn't be anything new. It is.)

He hides in his room more. Deaton's books have so far been pretty useless. Derek is pretty useless. The notes that Stiles has left scattered around are mostly illegible and, therefore, pretty useless. One bit that Derek can actually make out reads: **NEMETON NOT EVIL** in bold all caps, circled heavily, with offshoots all around. One of them is just a line diagonally to the right with simply _'hah!'_ next to it.

Derek has to agree with that sentiment. All the druidic lore claims that a nemeton is a neutral power, a sacred space for prayer or healing. If that's true, then something's gone horribly wrong with theirs.

The threat doesn't feel quite so immediate when he's lying in his motel room, bored and wishing someone were there with him. Cora texts him sporadically — they aren't really phone people — but that's hardly enough to keep him occupied. He misses her, but she's happy with her new pack, better than when she was with Derek.

He's halfway to sleeping, his mind floating in that haze between dreaming and knowing he's dreaming, when Scott sends him a text. The phone buzzing startles him out of it, and Derek actually physically shakes himself to clear away the images. Submersing himself in someone else's scent, even the faint lingering traces that Stiles has left all over his room, is the stupidest thing he could do right now.

He's so relieved for the distraction, eager to finally have something to do that he dresses in a hurry and forgets his coat. Thankfully, it isn't as cold outside as it has been.

When he reaches Scott's house, there's only one person inside and it is not Scott.

Stiles opens the door at Derek's knock. "Scott and Isaac went to Allison's for a minute," he says without preamble, relaying a message like he'd been expecting Derek, and steps back to let him enter. "She saw... um. Someone. Another ghost thing. And it freaked her out." He fidgets, tugging needlessly at the back of his collar. Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles sighs, dropping his hands to his sides. "It was her aunt."

Derek pauses over the threshold, then reboots himself and gently shuts the door behind him. "Oh," he says. He takes in the worried expression on Stiles's face, and twists his mouth to the side in a smirk. "Allison shouldn't feel too bad; that's enough to scare anyone."

Stiles's eyes pop wider, mouth dropping open, and he lets out a short laugh. The tension drains out of his body, shoulders relaxing. "Yeah," he says, a little breathily. "My thoughts exactly." He turns and heads into the living room, speaking over his shoulder. "So, Scott said they'd be right back, but you know Scott, so... I don't know how long he'll actually be."

"Is this why he texted me to come over?" Derek asks, stopping in the middle of the room when Stiles does.

"This?" asks Stiles, eyebrows rising to match his accelerated heart, and Derek realizes how close he's standing to Stiles.

"Um, I—" Derek clears his throat. "Allison," he says, and adds, "Kate," without tripping over the name.

"Right. Yeah, I think," Stiles says, nodding and taking a step away. He drops down onto the sofa, sending a rush of air out of the cushions and a gust of mingled scents into the air — mostly Scott and dust and Stiles, but also—

"You were with Lydia," Derek says sharply, and Stiles looks up at him surprised.

"What—were you lurking again?"

"I can smell her perfume on you," Derek tells him, irritated.

"I think werewolves should adopt the term 'Smell ya later.' It's fitting," Stiles retorts. He folds his arms over his chest and leans back into the couch cushion. "I see Lydia every day at school."

"But you don't usually smell of her so… so strongly." Now that he's paying attention to it, he can smell her all over Stiles's clothes and... and his skin. He grits his teeth, trying to filter it out of every breath.

Stiles doesn't appear to notice. "Yeah, well, when she's with Aiden, I'm not with her, and she's usually with Aiden so…" He shrugs, and Derek latches onto a key word there.

"The twins are still here?" His voice comes out in a growl. He hasn't caught a whiff of them the entire time he's been back.

"Hey, don't look at me. I wanted to vote them off the island," says Stiles. "They don't really have anywhere else to go, though, and now that they're omega I guess they're too scared to go off on their own. They're pretty much just laying low. They stay out of our way, we stay out of theirs. Even if they are still kind of dating our friends."

_Omega,_ Derek thinks. Both of them? Even without an alpha, with just the two of them, he and Cora were still betas. Derek is practically omega now, will be soon if he doesn't...

"Scott hasn't offered them a place in his pack?" he asks, and watches Stiles's face screw up momentarily before he shrugs again.

"No," he answers. "I think he's thinking about it, though. Isaac and I are sort of the last holdouts on that. It's about the only thing we agree on. Allison is very conveniently not having an opinion on the matter. At least, she's not sharing it with me. Or Scott, probably, because he would've told me."

"Would he?" Derek can't help but wonder aloud.

"Yeah, he would." Stiles sets his jaw, eyes challenging, and Derek holds back a laugh. He hadn't actually meant it as an accusation, or a slight against Scott. It's good, though, to see Stiles defending him. Scott will be fine with someone like that in his corner.

"You didn't tell him about me," Derek says, and sits down on the couch next to him, leaving a cushion between them.

"I was going to," Stiles says, twisting sideways on the couch to face him. "You beat me to it."

They watch each other across the space. He's not sure who cracks first, but he's going to say Stiles. Because. Derek does feel his lip twitch and then they're grinning at each other like idiots. He wants to lean over and kiss Stiles, feel that smile against his own skin and rub his face over Stiles's cheek.

But he stops himself.

"Lydia," he says, sobering the moment. "Did she tell you anything?"

Stiles loses his smile and hunches his shoulders. "Still hasn't remembered anything yet." He looks contemplative for a second, then pinches the front of his shirt between thumb and forefinger and lifts it to his nose. "Oh," he says, half the smile coming back. "She wore my jacket at lunch." He points to a chair by the door where his blue jacket is hanging over the back. "It got really cold earlier all of a sudden, but it wasn't when school let out. I was sweating to death in my Jeep on the drive over here."

And Derek can smell that, too. It's thicker than the traces left back in his motel room, that Derek was falling asleep to, but diluted by the scents of the McCall house and Lydia's overpowering perfume. Derek's own scent isn't present at all on Stiles. He wishes he didn't know that, wishes he didn't know what their scents mixed together smelled like. He's never cursed his werewolf senses before, wouldn't give them up for anything (almost anything). Hell, he's experienced life without, if only briefly on those rare lunar eclipse nights.

But he'll admit that sometimes they have their drawbacks.

Derek hasn't realized he'd been leaning steadily closer to Stiles until Stiles gasps in a breath and breathes out, "Oh my god." His eyes are wide, and Derek jerks back, but Stiles isn't looking at him. His gaze is over Derek's shoulder, focused on—

"I wanted to be stronger," Erica says, her big brown eyes seeking Derek's and the blood in his veins freezes. "You said I'd be stronger." Her voice is soft, the small, quiet, little girl voice she used before. Then she roars, eyes glowing yellow, fangs gleaming, dropping into a crouch and ready to spring.

She leaps at them, and Derek flinches, throwing himself backward into the couch and Stiles. Stiles's arms come up around him and somehow Derek's face ends up pressed into his chest. He's held there for a long moment, the absence of her roar ringing loudly in his ears alongside the rapid beating of Stiles's heart beneath Derek's head.

When he looks up, Erica is gone, the room empty save for him and Stiles.

"Hey, you're okay," Stiles says. He still has his arms around Derek, one hand gently soothing over Derek's back. Derek looks down at himself and he's shaking. He disentangles himself from Stiles and stands up, putting distance between them.

"I don't belong here," he says to himself, heading for the door.

"Derek, wait!" Stiles calls behind him, but Derek's already out the door leaving him behind.

 

* * *

 

Scott shows up about three minutes after Derek bolts. Stiles is still standing halfway to the door trying to decide if he should go after him when Scott walks in. He looks tired.

Stiles stuffs his keys back into his pocket, and asks, "How'd it go?"

"She's fine," Scott says, and that's not really what Stiles meant. He looks past Scott at the door.

"They didn't come back with you?"

"Nah." Scott shakes his head. "Isaac stayed with her. She seemed better, having him there." He walks past Stiles into the living room and slumps down on the couch. Stiles hesitates a second before going to join him.

"Scotty, buddy," he says, haltingly. "Are you really okay with them? I mean, with..." he trails off. Scott hasn't really been talking about it, none of them have been talking about it, how they're all together in this, their pack, but Scott's best girl and Scott's best... wolf are hooking up not exactly behind his back. Turns out that 'talking' in the boiler room a couple weeks ago was actually just talking.

"I have to be," is all Scott says.

"You really don't," Stiles tells him. That's gotta go against some sort of pack rules. Stiles doesn't know, but it seems like it would. The bro-code for wolves. Betas don't move in on their Alpha's ex. "It would be normal for you to be upset, Scott, for you to _tell them_ that you don't like it. I mean," Stiles says, with a little chuckle, "you're their alpha now."

He means it as a joke, but Scott doesn't laugh or even crack a smile. He nods, instead, face very serious. "Yeah, but I can't use it like that. I don't have the right to keep them apart. And it's not like they haven't considered my feelings," he says, turning his big earnest eyes on Stiles. "They have. We've talked, and I told them I'm okay. I have to be okay because I want them to be happy. They've got their own issues to work out; they don't need to be worrying about me, too."

In this moment, Stiles feels almost like the Grinch when he realizes the goodness of Whos and his heart grows three sizes. Scott is the good-est Who in Whoville. Stiles claps a hand on his shoulder and gives him a little shake.

"Well okay then," he says, offering a small smile before narrowing his eyes at Scott. "But, just so we're clear, if it was me trying to date Allison, you'd handcuff me to a radiator and chew me out, right?"

"Of course."

"Figuratively," Stiles says, and Scott smirks at him. Stiles punches him in the shoulder and hurts his own hand doing it. Scott just laughs, then looks around them.

"So, Derek was here," he says.

Stiles blinks at him, off guard. "Yeah. You just missed him." He scrunches his face at Scott. "How did you know?" Scott just twitches his nose back and forth, _Bewitched_ -style, and... right. "What, you can just smell his—his essence in the room?" Stiles jokes.

"On the couch," says Scott. Then he leans forward a bit toward Stiles and wrinkles his nose up. "And on you a little bit."

"That will never not be creepy," Stiles informs him. "Um, yeah, he came. I mean—he was here. We were sitting on the couch for a minute. Then Erica showed up."

"In my house?" Scott glances around them like he might be able to spot a trace of her, dust unsettled or knick-knacks out of place. "I think Erica's only been to my house, like, once. I mean, when she was..."

"Yeah, I know." Stiles scratches the back of his neck. "Heather hadn't been to my house since we were six. I don't think they're tied to places."

"Is it weird, that you guys have seen them more than me?" Scott asks.

"Pretty sure the whole thing is weird, man. Maybe it's—" Stiles starts and stops, not sure he should go on, but... "Maybe it's because you haven't been around death quite as much. Not... not in the same ways, I mean."

Scott gives him a long, sympathetic look and nods slightly. "Maybe. I'm kind of amazed he actually showed up when I asked. Although, he didn't stick around to hear the news."

"Is there any?" Stiles asks. He's thinking about Erica roaring at them. Or at _Derek_. Derek has seen more death than anyone he's ever met. Even Lydia, and finding death is, like, her job now. Erica appeared for Derek. Like his sister. And Ms. Blake out in the woods.

In the woods...

"Nothing new yet," Scott is saying. "Allison said she'd head over to Lydia's soon. To help her work on her... remembering... thing. The Argent archives aren't coming up with anything, either. Because, well..."

"It's not really a thing you can hunt," Stiles says absently, his mind whizzing away in another direction. Scott smelled Derek on the couch, on Stiles, just now, but neither Scott nor Isaac smelled Derek on him after they'd rolled around on the forest floor together.

He looks up and Scott's already heading to his kitchen. "I'm gonna take some dinner to my mom," he says to Stiles over his shoulder. "You want?"

"Uh, no thanks, man. I'm gonna—" He jerks his thumb toward the front door. If he doesn't say where he's going, it won't be detected as a lie. Scott waves at him, calling a 'see ya later' as Stiles hurries out the door to his Jeep.

 

 

"You're still here," he says as soon as Derek opens his motel room door. And then, immediately, "Smell me."

"What?" Derek's eyebrows frown at Stiles.

"Where have I been? Who was I just with?" Stiles says, rapid fire, bouncing on his toes a little. "You can tell, right?"

"You were at Scott's," Derek states like Stiles is an idiot. "I just saw you there not half an hour ago."

"Yeah, but—" Stiles growls in frustration. "If you hadn't, you'd still be able to tell. Right? Earlier, you knew I was with Lydia because you smelled her perfume. Scott knew you'd been at his house on his couch with me. But after that night in the woods, when I took Lydia to the hospital and met up with the others, none of the wolves smelled your scent on me even though we'd been _way_ closer than just now on Scott's couch. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"And I didn't know you were out there until you bumped into me, both times," Derek says, finally picking up what Stiles was putting down.

"The blood, on the Nemeton," Stiles says, nearly breathless with excitement. "Scott said he couldn't smell the blood. We didn’t think to see if he could smell anything else around, or all of us standing there with him. But they're probably connected, right?"

Derek's nodding. "Okay. So we...?"

"So, I think we should go test it."

"Test it."

"Yeah, you know, go out there, see if your super-smeller works. I don't know why or how, but this feels important."

Derek pauses, licks his lips. "What did Scott say?"

"What did Scott say about what?" Stiles asks, trying not to let his eyes linger on Derek's mouth.

"What did Scott say when you told him this?"

He refocuses on Derek's eyes. "I didn't. I mean, if I told him about that then I'd have to _tell him_ ," Stiles says, trying really hard to get the point across with his eyes. "You know, about... in the woods?" Neither his eyes nor his brows are anywhere near as expressive as Derek's, apparently.

"I think we should wait for Scott."

"So you're not going to come out with me? I mean," Stiles adds, hastily, "to the Nemeton. For investigating."

"We should wait for Scott," Derek repeats. "We can tell him you reached this conclusion another way."

Stiles stuffs his hands in his pants pockets and lifts both shoulders in a sort of shrug. "Or we could just tell him the truth," he suggests.

"I thought you didn't want to."

"Because _you_ didn't want to," Stiles counters. He rubs a hand over his hair. "Fine, we can wait for Scott, but... but you're still gonna be here, right? You're not skipping town again?" Derek raises both eyebrows at him. "Because the way you ran out of there, it seemed like you were maybe gonna leave again."

"I wasn't leaving, I just—" Derek opens the door a little wider and gestures into his room. "Here. See?"

It's not really an invitation to come inside, Stiles is sure, but he sidles past Derek into the room anyway because it's started getting cold out again and he left his jacket at Scott's house. Once his eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, all Stiles sees is the mess of books and notepaper scattered around the floor, the dresser, and the bed. The only thing of Derek's he can see is his pea coat laying on the end of the bed.

"You sure you weren't leaving?"

Derek releases a low sigh and closes the door to block out the wind. "I'm not leaving," he says, passing Stiles to go sit on the end of the bed. "Earlier was just... she was..." Derek stutters and runs out of steam, his whole body seems to collapse in on itself, his head hanging down with his eyes glued to his knees.

Stiles dithers near the door, unsure what to do, then finally he goes to sit next to Derek. The mattress sinks beneath their combined weight, tipping Stiles into Derek's side. He places his hand over Derek's back between his shoulders, almost hovering, and very gently makes contact.

"She was dead," Derek says quietly. "She was dead and I didn't know. I should have felt it. If I was really her alpha, I would have known it as soon as it happened."

_Like losing a limb_ , Cora had told him. Stiles moves his hand, just a small up-down motion on Derek's back.

"But she left," Stiles says. "Isaac told Scott that she and Boyd planned to leave on their own anyway."

Derek nods, just slightly, eyes still down on the floor. "I should have protected them. I had one job."

Stiles rubs Derek's back in slow, tiny circles. He can't bring himself to tell Derek it wasn't his fault because this, in particular, kind of was. And Derek wouldn't believe him anyway. Erica and Boyd would probably still be alive if they'd never met him, and Derek knows that.

"I think you had more than one job," Stiles tells him instead. "Seriously, you had kind of a lot on your plate there. It's really no wonder you dropped the ball a little, especially since you insisted on doing everything alone."

Derek hunches his shoulders up to his ears, head sinking even lower. Stiles just rubs his back in longer strokes.

"Scott's lucky to have you," Derek whispers. "I'd be lucky to have you." He turns his head toward Stiles and straightens up. Stiles's hand slides slowly down his back and away to rest on the bed beside him. Derek leans in slowly, very slowly, and touches his lips just at the corner of Stiles's mouth. His breath hitches. "Why are you always here?"

"I—" Stiles starts but then Derek covers his mouth fully, a real kiss. Stiles moves into it, sucking Derek's bottom lip into his mouth. His hand slides up Derek's back again to hold onto the nape of his neck. Derek shivers at his touch, and Stiles draws back to look at his face. "You said you didn't—"

"I know," Derek cuts him off. His nose brushes Stiles's cheek, his eyes are closed.

"Are you doing this because you want to?" Stiles asks. "Or because you're upset right now?" He waits for an answer. "Look at me," Stiles commands and Derek opens his eyes.

"Both, I think," Derek says, eyes locked on his.

"That sounds promising." It comes out a little more sarcastic than Stiles meant. Or maybe it didn't. But he starts to lean back in anyway because he _wants_. This time, Derek halts him before he can make contact, large hand like a stop sign on the middle of Stiles's chest.

"Do you even like me?" Derek asks, brow furrowed and eyes bright in the soft glow of the bedside lamp.

Stiles looks him up and down, wills his heartbeat steady. "I like parts of you," he answers.

Derek's face turns to stone and he starts to get up. Stiles grasps for him, hanging onto his shoulders to keep him in place.

"Wait, Derek. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for being honest," Derek says, face downcast, but he settles his weight back on the bed beside Stiles, doesn't dislodge his hands.

"I wasn't. I mean that wasn't honest, I was just being a dick." Stiles lets his hands fall away from Derek's shoulders, and sighs. "Yeah, Derek, I like you. I don't _get_ you sometimes. Most of the time. And I'm pretty sure you don't get me, either. You're surly and rude and you can be a huge asshole. Like, sometimes I just want to pie you in the face," he says, clenching his fist in the air in front of them.

Derek looks over at him with the most absurd expression. "Pie... me?"

"Yeah, you know, like, shove a pie in your face Stooges-style, 'cuz it's violent and cathartic for the rage, but nobody actually gets hurt and also it would be hilarious."

"You want to shove a pie in my face."

"Only sometimes. When you frustrate me. And you frustrate me a lot, but..." Stiles shifts on the bed, bumping his arm against Derek's. "But, yeah, I like you. I just like you."

Derek's face goes soft, a lost expression in his eyes. If Stiles didn't know better, he'd think Derek looked scared, but he's seen Derek in mortal peril and he didn't look like this.

"The bigger question here, I think," Stiles goes on, "is if you like me. Because a couple months ago, I would've thought no. A couple weeks ago I would've thought no. _Yesterday_ I wo—"

Derek kisses him again, and that might be an answer. It probably isn't, but it could be. Stiles forgets the question anyway. He lets Derek guide him down onto the bed and wrap those huge hands around him. He wraps his own hands around Derek's bulging biceps, and sweeps up over his shoulders to the nape of his neck. Derek seems to really like that.

They make out for a long, long while. It's better than last time, and they both still have all their clothes on. Derek's taking his time, exploring and letting Stiles explore. There's still a sense of urgency, but it isn't frantic or furious like before.

When Stiles reaches for the fly of Derek's jeans, Derek puts a hand over his and holds him in place. He kisses Stiles again, on the mouth, the cheek, the neck. He settles his face there, breathing into the collar of Stiles's shirt, and they just lie together on Derek's rumpled bed.

 

* * *

 

He doesn't know how long they stay there like that, with his face hidden in Stiles's neck, inhaling deeply until everything else fades away. Stiles breathes in time with him, his body turned into Derek's, lightly running his palm up and down Derek's side. Honestly, Derek never would have guessed Stiles could remain quiet for so long. He can smell the arousal coming from both of them, can feel Stiles hard at his hip, but Stiles seems perfectly content to just lie here, not demanding anything of Derek.

This isn't the first time he's felt so relaxed with another person. He's been here before, and he's always been _wrong_. Others have touched him like they cared. Part of him thinks that Jennifer, in her own twisted way, really _did_ care for him, maybe even loved him.

He didn't love her. But he could have. If she hadn't—a few more months and he would have.

He takes in one more big, deep breath, filling his senses, and feels Stiles shiver against him. He parts his lips and slides his open mouth along the skin of Stiles's throat, feels Stiles's quick gasp of air and the bobbing of his Adam's apple.

Stiles's hand tightens on Derek's side, bunching the fabric in his fist. He slips down the bed a little so their faces are even, catches Derek's eye, gives him a probing look. Derek doesn't know exactly what Stiles is looking for, so he pulls Stiles closer and kisses him again. He feels Stiles grin against his lips; that must have answered whatever question he had. His hand slides under Derek's shirt, material pulling tight between his body and the bed. Derek lifts up, reaches behind to grasp the neck of his Henley and tug it over his head.

Stiles laughs, the sound startling and amazing. He yanks his own shirts off and gets his hands back on Derek's skin, their mouths crashing together again. They roll across the bed, tugging and kicking the rest of their clothes off, until Derek's head is cradled in the pillows and Stiles is straddling his hips. He can feel Stiles's pubic hair, coarse and springy, tickle the sensitive skin over his balls and dick. Derek cants his hips just so and Stiles sucks in a breath when their cocks rub together. Stiles looks down, watching while he rocks his hips in slow back-and-forth movements. He touches Derek's cock, almost delicately, fingers tracing around the head. He seems fascinated with Derek's foreskin, playing with it.

Derek curves his hand around the jut of Stiles's hip, and Stiles lowers himself slowly until he's lying on top of Derek, bare chests sticking together. Stiles smooths his hands over Derek's shoulders and around the sides of his neck. Stiles isn't holding him down, isn't even trying to, but Derek is the one hanging on by his fingertips. This trepidation isn't new, either. Derek never knows what to expect from people, what people expect from him. A hot frisson shivers in his stomach.

"What do you... want?" Derek asks.

Stiles ducks his head, a fierce blush blazing up over his cheeks, all down his neck and chest, even though he's naked and should be beyond embarrassment by now. Derek's expecting him to request something totally out there, even though that isn't what he meant by the question, but Stiles just looks down at him, right in the eye, with the most bashful, happy smile Derek's ever seen, and kisses him softly, sweetly.

"Whatever you... like to do is, uh, good with me," Stiles says, biting his own lip. It reddens even further, as do his cheeks. His eyelashes are dark contrasting beautifully with his pinkened skin. He keeps looking away, so Derek lifts one hand to cup Stiles's face and draw him down into a lingering kiss.

This isn't some random new person he's just met. He knows Stiles. And Stiles knows him. Derek wants to feel this, to let himself feel this without reservations, just for a little while.

So what if it's not real?

 

 

He pretends to sleep when he feels Stiles begin to stir awake on the bed behind him. He'd almost fallen asleep for real, warm and comfortable with Stiles nestled in his arms, but the longer he lay there the louder his brain got. He'd been able to shut that little voice up earlier, gave into impulse, but now he can't move for fear of doing or saying the wrong thing.

This isn't Stiles's fault and he doesn't deserve to be hurt.

He has his back to Stiles now, feels the shift of the sheets when Stiles turns towards him.

"Derek?" he whispers, almost too quietly like he's afraid to wake him. "I have to go. My da—" He snaps his mouth closed on that audibly. "I have to get home. I don't want to wake you, but…" His breathing is shallow, but warm as he comes closer to Derek's bare skin.

Derek does his absolute best to keep his breathing even and steady, to not move an inch, when he feels Stiles's lips touch his shoulder. His nose brushes along Derek's skin and he inhales deeply. Derek stops himself from shuddering. Stiles kisses his shoulder again, his neck, and whispers, "Goodnight, Derek."

His hand rests lightly on Derek's shoulder for a second, and Derek remembers another hand touching him, helping him heal, feeling safe and cared for. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, face buried in his pillow, and doesn't move.

In the darkness, he listens to Stiles gather his things and get dressed. The motel room door opens with a clack of the loose handle, and Derek waits for the soft puff of air and snick of the door closing again. It remains open, though, for a long moment. He can imagine Stiles standing there, looking back at him. Three carefully measured breaths later, the door finally closes and Derek listens to the sound of Stiles's retreating heart.

 

* * *

 

The downstairs lights are on when Stiles pulls into the driveway of his house, meaning his dad is not only home but probably waiting for him. He steels himself on the front steps and then barges into the house making as much noise as possible. Better to bluster in cheerfully than try to sneak past.

"Hey, Dad!" he calls out, stomping his feet and rubbing warmth back into his arms. The temperature sure dropped dramatically. He'll have to call Scott to bring his jacket with him to school tomorrow.

"Stiles? Is that you?"

"Of course it is. Who else calls you 'Dad'?" Stiles follows his dad's voice to the dining room. "Actually, no, if there's an answer to that question, I don't want to know."

His dad raises one eyebrow at him, but he smiles. He's seated at the table, reading glasses perched on the very end of his nose, with some papers spread out in front of him — looks like bills — and the remains of dinner in a bowl on the table.

"There's beef stew on the stove," his dad says, gesturing toward the kitchen.

"Ooh, perfect." Stiles rubs his hands together and heads into the kitchen. That'll warm him up. Although, he was plenty warm earlier, lying in bed with Derek. He's glad his dad's in the other room and can't see what Stiles is sure is the goofiest looking grin on his face.

Because he just had sex again.

And it was so good. All of it, even the heavy conversation beforehand. But especially all the touching, and rubbing, and kissing. Thankfully, the stubble burn isn't so bad this time; his face just looked a little wind burnt when he checked it in his rearview mirror. Stiles felt weird about just leaving like that, felt like he was sneaking out on him, but what if he'd woken Derek up and the spell was broken? What if Derek went back to being his grumpy, crotchety-old-man self and just kicked Stiles out anyway?

Derek never actually answered his question, whether or not he _likes_ Stiles. He was lonely and sad and maybe that's all it was. Derek's taken it back before, denied it. Stiles had gotten out this time before that could happen, before Derek could ruin it. Before Stiles could ruin it. Now he's almost dreading seeing Derek again, for fear they'll still somehow manage to sour this memory.

Feeling much less lively, he gets himself a bowl of stew and a fat slice of bread, and takes it back into the dining room to sit with his dad. He's just taken his first bite, scorching his tongue, when his dad speaks again.

"So," he says, waiting for Stiles to look up at him. "Derek Hale is back in town?"

Stiles pauses, mouth full of burning hot stew, to determine if that's a legitimate question or a trap. He decides trap. He swallows, wincing as it goes down, and wishes he'd remembered to pour himself a glass of milk.

"Oh, yeah," Stiles hedges, waving his hand at his scalded tongue. "Uhhh… he came back. Came to see Scott and everything. Did, uh, did I forget to tell you that?" Stiles gets up and goes back to the kitchen to get the milk. Hopes his dad makes nothing of his flaming red face.

"Seems so," his dad says to his back. "Anything else you forgot to tell me?"

Stiles freezes with his head in the refrigerator. Trap? No. No way. There's no way his dad could _possibly_ know. He is not psychic, and if he knew Stiles had been meeting Derek in a motel room for the past week, he wouldn't be nearly this calm.

"Um... like what?" Stiles asks, taking the milk out and starting back toward the table. His dad just points at the cupboard, and Stiles goes back to grab a glass.

"I don't know, anything about ghosts maybe?"

Stiles nearly drops the milk mid-pour. He does knock over the glass, but it's mostly empty and just spills a little on the counter. He sets it upright next to the open milk carton, and spins around to face his dad. "You've seen them?"

"No," his dad says slowly, rubbing his forehead. "But we've been getting a lot of strange calls lately."

"Other people can see them, too?" That's news. He's not sure if good or bad yet.

"People are definitely seeing something. Would explain why everyone's seemed so unnerved lately. Wait, _too_?" His dad narrows his eyes at him. "Are you saying you can see them?"

"Uh…" Stiles rubs the back of his head. "Yeah." He shuffles his feet, grabs a paper towel to wipe up the spilled milk. "We think it's 'cuz of that thing we did. Scott and Allison and me," he says over his shoulder, concentrating on cleaning up and pouring milk into the glass without spilling this time. _But if others can see them, maybe not…_

"That thing you did to save our lives, you mean?"

"Yeah, that." Stiles puts the milk carton away and takes his glass back to the table. "Deaton said it would connect us."

"To each other?"

"No. Well, yeah, but also to the town and the, like... supernatural sssstuff," he breathes out the last word, a reluctant, elongated hiss of air.

His father watches him from the opposite side of the table. "And you only thought to tell me this now?"

"I know, I'm sorry." Stiles lets his shoulders droop. "But I didn't really know what it meant then, and I didn't want you to worry about it."

"Stiles—"

"I know! I know, it's your job to worry, but I hate that—I hate being a thing that worries you."

His dad sighs. "You know, a parent worries whether there's anything to worry about or not. It's just what we do. I worry even if you don't tell me these things, more when you don't tell me. It's maybe an abstract, generalized kind of worry when I don't know the specifics, but it's still there and it won't go away, Stiles. I won't ever not worry about you."

Stiles slouches down even further, head hanging. He raises just his eyes to see his dad's face. "That's what being a parent is, huh?" His dad nods. "That kind of blows, Dad, I'm not gonna lie."

Dad snorts, shaking his head. "I don't disagree. Sometimes it's worth it," he says, looking at Stiles the way that only his dad (and once upon a time, his mom) could. His chest aches for a minute and he can feel pinpricks behind his eyes.

"Scott told Melissa that Derek stopped by their house to let him know he was back in town, _and_ to keep an eye out for anything strange at the hospital. Probably took him all of two minutes," Dad says, pointedly.

"Okay, I get it," says Stiles, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He picks up his spoon, dips it into his stew and swirls it around a little. Ducking his head close to his bowl, preparing a spoonful, Stiles quietly asks, "You haven't… uh, seen any, have you?"

Since this started, he's been shoving it down and shoving it down as far as it will go, but now that he lets the thought slip in, it's there front and center, and he can't push it away again. He can see it on his dad's face, too, when he looks at him.

"No," Dad says and reaches across the table to lay his hand over Stiles's. "She's not here, son." His voice cracks. "She's not—she's at peace. Wherever she went, she's... she's not a ghost."

Stiles nods, lowering his eyes. The low light of the dining room brightens and blurs when he blinks the wetness away. Dad squeezes his fingers before letting go.

After a few minutes Stiles looks at him, again bent over his checkbook. Deep lines of concentration etch his face, and his reading glasses have slipped down and left those little marks on the bridge of his nose.

"You about done?" Stiles asks. "We could watch a movie." He can think of nothing he'd like more right now than to curl up on the couch next to his dad and lose themselves for a couple of hours.

Dad lifts his reading glasses off his nose and rubs his eyes, but he smiles. "Finish your dinner then go set it up."

 

* * *

 

Early in the morning, when it's still dark out and most people aren't even awake yet, Derek goes for a run, crunching frost-covered grass under his feet. He'd showered last night, and will again when he goes back to his room, but it's not enough to wash the scent off him. He feels like he's sweating Stiles and pheromones out of his pores. He pushes himself harder, willing his mind to go blank.

He takes a long, circuitous route to the preserve, avoiding the center of town and most residential areas, but he's surprised at where he ends up, eventually coming to a rest just at the edge of the old Hale property.

He stands between two trees, their tall trunks framing his view of a falling down house. He stands there long enough for the sky to brighten and cast its washed out light over everything. Coming back here was never easy, no matter what anyone thought; stepping inside his damaged past, even when he still hoped that Laura was alive, that the pain he'd felt upon her passing, from miles and miles away, was just a phantom echo of that massive loss they'd both felt years before.

He came back here then and buried himself in his mistakes, surrounded by the ruins of his home, his pack and family, part of him wishing they'd reach into this world and drag him after them. But Derek had given up the prospect of seeing them again a long time ago. If there's an afterlife — and his mother had always believed there to be — Derek knows he wouldn't be permitted.

Now, standing here, the very real possibility of seeing them again, of them seeing what he's become, is a lead ball in his stomach.

He can never make up for what he's done. What would he say to them? What might _they_ say to _him_?

Laura knew. When she appeared, the way she'd looked at him, so disappointed. She must have discovered the truth about the fire before she died. Derek couldn't even apologize to her. If she were here before him now, he wouldn't have the words. Nothing he could say or do would ever make up for it.

The full moon is coming in a few nights. Can they still feel it where they are? Can Erica? Boyd? Are they still here, waiting for the power and strength that Derek promised them? Not even Stiles had attempted to absolve him of responsibility. But Stiles will probably end up hating him, too, when this is all over. Whatever he thinks he's feeling isn't real, and Derek should put a stop to it once and for all.

Except Derek is a coward, has always been a coward and will always be a coward. He can't even go face his own ghosts.

He hangs back away from the house, hidden in the trees, for hours.

 

* * *

 

In the morning at school, Stiles tells Scott and the others his idea about going to check out the Nemeton again. He fibs a little, saying that he and Derek have wandered around there during their research. Scott frowns at him for going out there without telling him, but agrees that if Stiles was able to sneak up on Derek, of all people, due to some influence of the Nemeton, then it's worth checking out.

(For a second, Stiles contemplates telling Scott the whole truth. About him and Derek. But something holds him back, and it's not just Derek's obvious reluctance about letting anyone else find out. Stiles has no words to explain it, and trying to talk about it, out loud with someone else, especially Scott, would only make that worse. A tiny piece of him whispers that talking about it will only verify the insanity of it all, and Stiles isn't ready to face that.)

Their field trip gets delayed that afternoon, however, because Allison has a meltdown. Stiles doesn't think he's ever seen Allison cry before.

"It was her, it was _really_ her," she says, huddled in an empty hallway under the stairwell in the school with Isaac's arm around her and Scott close but not touching. There are tears in her eyes, and her lip trembles. "It didn't just look and sound like her, it smelled like her and _felt_ like her and she was really there," Allison insists, and the fierce determination in her eyes dares anyone to contradict her. "It wasn't like with Kate. She wasn't—"

"I know," Scott tells her, gently. "We believe you, Allison. We know." He looks up and spots Stiles there. With one last glance at Isaac and Allison, Scott comes over. "Her mom," he whispers to Stiles.

The words are like a gut-punch. _She saw her mom._

His body must give something away because Scott looks at him closely and wraps his hand lightly around Stiles's forearm. "You okay?" he asks quietly. Stiles musters up a reassuring smile for him.

"Yeah."

He expects Scott to accept it, to turn back to Allison, but instead he wraps his arms around Stiles tight and pulls him into a hug. "You wouldn't want to see her, man," Scott whispers to him. "Not like this."

And of course Scott knows. Stiles hugs him back, his brother in all but blood, and when they separate he nods to let Scott know it's appreciated, that he helped.

Allison's furiously wiping at her eyes, saying over and over, "I'm okay, I am."

Lydia is with her now, at her elbow. She looks worried, but steadfast when Stiles catches her eye. "I'm working on it," she says to him through gritted teeth, and he nods. He knows. She's been locking herself away for weeks, trying everything that Deaton gives her. Stiles only sees her at school and even then she's distracted. Lydia Martin is never anything but one hundred percent focused at school.

"Sidebar?" Stiles asks, jerking his head away from the others and hoping she'll follow. She does. "If there's anything I can—"

"There isn't. I'd tell you if there was," Lydia says, and Stiles acknowledges the truth of that. If he could be the one to sense death instead of her, he's sure she'd gladly hand it over. "I think you were right, though. We need to go back. I need to."

"Maybe not today, though, huh?" Stiles says, indicating Allison. She's calmer now, talking quietly with Isaac while Scott stands with his back to them, giving the illusion of privacy. But it's more like he's guarding them from the rest of the world.

"No," Lydia agrees. "I… _feel_ ," she forces the word out, "we need to all be there, and be at our best. Our strongest." Part of her work with Deaton is about learning to trust her instincts, her gut feelings over logic and intellect. From what Stiles has gathered, that's the largest obstacle that's been holding her back.

"You think everyone will be ready tomorrow after school?" Stiles asks, not quietly enough.

"It's fine. We can go today," Allison says, squaring her shoulders and pushing her hair away from her face.

"Allison—" both Scott and Isaac start to say, but Lydia cuts them off.

"No. Tomorrow would be better," she says, firmly. "I'm close, but not… not there yet. I'll need your help. You have to be ready, too." She takes Allison by the hand and starts to lead her away. Isaac follows a pace behind, waiting only briefly for Scott and Stiles to walk with him.

"She said she loved me," Allison whispers, voice wobbling, "and she was sorry." Allison sniffles, and Stiles can't take any more because Scott was wrong. Stiles loves him, but he doesn't get it.

It's not that Stiles is jealous Allison got to see and speak with her dead mom and he didn't. Except he totally is. He's jealous, and appalled that he's jealous because she's obviously shattered by it. She only lost her mom last year, the pain is still fresh and raw. Stiles has had time to make space for that hurt, to live around it. Maybe it would crack open and bleed like losing her all over again, but he doesn't care; he wants to see his mother and he'd give almost anything for the chance.

There are two classes to go before the end of the school day, but Stiles doesn't have anything important happening, so he splits off from the group and heads straight out to the parking lot. Scott gives him a worried look, but Stiles waves him off, tells him he'll be fine. None of the teachers stop him, or even notice, and he makes a clean break for his Jeep.

He doesn't go to the cemetery; his mom hated cemeteries, she has never been there and he's sure she wouldn't start now. Dad's right. Wherever she is, she's happy, peaceful. There's no pain, or loneliness, or fear. She's safe. Far, far away from here.

Stiles just drives, with no destination in mind.

 

* * *

 

There's a soft knock on his motel room door, so faint that Derek barely hears it over the running water. He shuts the tap, dries his hands off, and goes to answer it.

Stiles rocks back and forth on his feet with his hands stuffed into his pockets and a tentative smile on his face. "Hi."

This is the part that Derek's been dreading. It's easy enough to tell himself he'll keep his distance from now on. It's not easy to tell Stiles anything he won't want to hear.

"Shouldn't you still be in school?" he asks, instead of addressing the real issue, or flat out telling him to go away.

Stiles just shrugs. "I cut my last couple classes. It's no big deal." He rises up on his toes to see over Derek into the room. "Were you asleep? Did I wake you? Do you just sleep all day?"

"No, I don't—" Derek cuts himself off, that old familiar irritation bubbling up inside of him. It's comforting, in a way; he's having zero urges to feel the warmth of Stiles up against his body, to kiss him, to... anything him. Derek rolls his eyes and leans against the door jamb. "Did you talk to Scott?"

"About... oh!" Stiles nods, a little manically. "Yeah, yeah. But, uh, something came up. Nothing new, just..." He rubs one hand up the back of his head, eyes flitting off to the side. "Just everyone needs a day, I think, so. So the plan is to go tomorrow after school. I'm sure Scott'll call you with the details. Or he'll call me with the details, and maybe assume I'll call you because he knows we've been researching together. I mean, that's what I told him. Researching." He stops talking abruptly, his mouth still open but the sound just cuts out.

"Okay," Derek responds slowly. "Well, you've passed the message on now, so." _So go, please._ If he can turn Stiles away without having to say the words, it would be so much better, so much easier for them both. But Stiles is just standing there, waiting. Hoping. Derek sighs, resigned to it.

"It was her mom. Allison's mom," Stiles blurts, and Derek flinches. Then the words come so quickly Derek can hardly separate them. "Was the thing that came up, I mean. 'Cuz Allison's mom died last year, but of course you know that 'cuz you were there, and I guess she just popped up in the middle of school to talk to her daughter, tell her how much she misses her and all that, and it's not even fair, right? Because she didn't even have to die. She could've still been here if she wanted. And it's not fair to Allison, either, she shouldn't have to go through that. You know what I'm talking about. I was driving around, and I thought 'Derek would understand this, Derek totally gets this' and I just—"

His breath hitches, and his heart is pounding. Derek takes him by the shoulders, uses his thumb to tip Stiles's chin up. "Hey."

"I couldn't think of anywhere else to go."

Now that Derek inspects him more closely, Stiles looks wrung out and miserable. Making a decision (probably a stupid one, but that's nothing new for him), Derek draws Stiles into a hug, wraps his arms around Stiles's shoulders and holds him close. Stiles's arms circle his waist, and he lays his head on Derek's shoulder with his face in Derek's neck.

"Is it bad?" Stiles asks, voice muffled and watery. "That I was hoping to see her? Not that I want my mom to be a ghost but I just..."

"No," Derek tells him. "It's not bad." Stiles's hair tickles at Derek's jaw; that's the only reason he rubs his face over the top of Stiles's head. Stiles squeezes his arms tighter around Derek's middle before pulling away. His eyes are bright, a little wet without any actual tears, as he gazes back at Derek. When he leans in, Derek doesn't stop him, lets their lips meet. It's simple and soft, until Stiles opens his mouth and pushes for more.

They sway together in the doorway, half in and half out of the room. Stiles is leaning heavily into him, sidling around and angling toward the bed, and Derek entertains the thought for a moment, kissing Stiles unreservedly, before reluctantly sliding his mouth away.

Derek should tell him to go. It's what he'd meant to do. Stiles is panting, each breath pressing his chest into Derek's, and watching him keenly.

"Go for a walk with me?" Derek says.

 

 

They walk away from the highway, into the scrub fields behind the motel and the few other businesses dotted along the road. Beyond that is forest that climbs up into the mountains.

Stiles is quiet, chatter all used up. He's nervous, Derek thinks, judging by the patter of his heart and the way he sucks in his breath every now and then like he wants to say something, but decides against it. It was Derek's idea to take a walk, but he isn't leading them anywhere and he hasn't a clue what to say, either.

Next to him, he notices Stiles shivering and tugging the sleeves of his plaid shirt down over his hands. "Where's your coat?"

"My jacket's still at Scott's house." Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. "He forgot to bring it to school with him this morning."

"Here." Derek takes off his own coat and holds it out for Stiles. Stiles just stares at him until Derek shakes it. "Put it on."

Stiles turns to slide his right arm through the sleeve, and Derek helps him get his left arm in, too, settling the coat on his shoulders. "Thanks," Stiles says, holding it closed over his chest. His fingers fiddle with the stiff corners of the lapels. "I gotta ask, what's with the new threads?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing! No, it looks—I like it. I mean it definitely doesn't scream 'serial killer' the way the leather did."

"That's what Cora said." Derek rolls his eyes. "She got it for me for Christmas."

"Oh. It's nice." Stiles runs his hands up and down his own arms over the wool. "Speaking of... I've been meaning to ask, well I probably should've asked before now, but where—"

"She stayed in Alaska. She—there's a pack in Skagway that she's settled in with."

"Alaska? In the winter?"

"She likes it up there," Derek says softly. She was really happy when he left her, although she was sad to see him go. But it's a good place for her, with a good pack. "And werewolves can keep warm just fine," he declares with a sardonic look at Stiles wearing his coat. Stiles wraps it tighter around himself and a ball of warmth unfurls in Derek's chest. He looks away, back out toward the mountains. "Plus, she pissed off some pack in South America and wanted to get as far away as possible."

Stiles snorts, his face splitting in a grin. "That must be a Hale family trait," he says, laughing more at Derek's glare. "No, seriously, I think you guys are, like, gold medalists in pissing people off."

"You're one to talk."

"Touché."

They're quiet for a while then, just the sound of their feet on the dry ground — Stiles clomping next to Derek's lighter tread — and the occasional car passing on the highway in the distance behind them.

"It's really empty out here," Stiles remarks. "I sometimes forget how we're basically surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. I wonder how far we are from the Nemeton, like how far its, uh, effects stretch. Deaton said it's a beacon now for the supernatural, but how powerful is the lure?"

Derek thinks about his dreams calling him back here. And everything that's happened since. He'd say it's pretty powerful.

"I wonder if there are ghosts everywhere," Stiles goes on. "It hadn't occurred to me before. How far away would we have to get to escape them? Other people can see them, too, by the way. It's not just us. Old Mrs. Henderson keeps calling the station to come arrest her dead husband. She's always been a little whackadoo, but there've been a few other calls, too. Have you seen any out here?" He turns to Derek. 

Derek shakes his head. "Not out here."

"Have you seen any others? New ones?"

He pauses for a long moment, then gives a reluctant, "No."

Stiles is watching him avidly, eyes cunning and insightful. "You went looking for them," he says. "Didn't you?"

He's not talking about new ghosts.

"I went... to the house," Derek tells him. Stiles is still watching, waiting for him to go on. "I couldn't go in. I couldn't—" He shakes himself. "It doesn't feel like pack there anymore. There's really nothing left."

"I haven't seen her," Stiles whispers, voice unsteady. "I've seen others, but not her." _His mother._

"How did she die?" Derek asks carefully, and listens to Stiles swallow and blink back new tears.

"Cancer," he answers shortly and clears his throat. "It was... she was sick for a long time."

"So it was normal," Derek mutters, and Stiles glares at him then. "No. Just. Look, I know it was horrible, and nothing will ever—but it was a natural death."

"What are you getting at?"

"The ghosts, spirits, whatever we're calling them, I thought they were all people who—who died because of me. Erica. Laura," he chokes out. "Allison's mother. Even Kate."

Stiles is shaking his head. "Derek, no. There've been—"

"Others, I know. Killed by Jennifer. Who was alive because of me. Or killed by Peter, who went insane because of what I did."

"You didn't do anything, Derek. She lied to you. She _used_ you."

"Tricked by a pretty face," Derek sneers. Whether he's talking about Jennifer or Kate, it applies in both cases.

"She lied to all of us," Stiles says louder this time, but Derek turns away from him.

"She seemed nice. Normal. Safe," he says. "But I'm always wrong."

"I didn't suspect her of anything, either." Stiles steps up next to him. "Hell, she wasn't even on my list."

Derek frowns at him. "You had a list?"

"Of potential killers, yeah. I never even thought about her. Even you were on it." He quickly backtracks when Derek makes a face at him. "That was when I thought maybe you'd gone psycho like Peter did. All alpha-nuts and power trippin'. Don't give me that look. There were a lot of people on that list, okay? Even Lydia was on it. Like, the only people who weren't suspects were me, my dad, and Scott. And probably Scott's mom. Although, she is a nurse; she'd definitely know how to do things properly and get rid of the evidence. So would my dad, for that matter. So would I, actually. I've looked stuff up. My internet search history could set off some serious alarms one of these days."

Derek feels his chest and shoulders shake with his quiet laughter, and lets a smile curve his mouth. Stiles blinks at him. "What?"

"Nothing." Derek shakes his head, unable to dispel the smile.

"What?" Stiles asks again, impatience and irritation present in his voice but dampened by a laugh. His face sobers when Derek steps closer to him.

"Jennifer felt safe," he says, trailing his hand down Stiles's arm, not grasping or clutching, just lightly touching the backs of Stiles's fingers with his. "You don't feel safe."

"Is that good or bad?" Stiles asks. His gaze keeps flicking between Derek's eyes and mouth.

"I don't know."

Stiles is the one to tangle their fingers together, holding Derek's hand firmly in his. "Come on, let's go back."

In the room, they remove each other's clothing, and Derek lifts Stiles up and drops them both onto the bed so quickly that Stiles's eyes widen in surprise when his back hits the mattress. He huffs out a laugh that Derek kisses right out of him. Derek mouths across his jaw and all over his neck, down Stiles's chest and the trail of hair below. When Derek takes him into his mouth, Stiles gasps out, "Oh my god," and Derek's whole body lights up.

 

 

Stiles talks in his sleep. Derek doesn't know why he's even surprised by this. He lies there and listens, focusing more on the sound of Stiles's heart than the nonsense coming out of his mouth. It's barely even words anyway. Derek wonders what he's dreaming about, hopes it isn't him when Stiles's heartbeat ratchets up and the stink of fear sweat spikes the air.

Stiles kicks out, landing a blow hard on Derek's calf. That's enough to jerk Stiles out of his dream. His heart is still racing and his breathing is quick and short, but he doesn't say anything. Derek rolls onto his side facing Stiles to let him know he's awake. He itches to reach out and touch, just brush skin under the covers and feel its warmth, but he restrains himself.

"Do you ever cut your toenails?" Derek asks, bumping Stiles's knee gently with his. "Even my claws aren't that bad." The joke has its desired effect — a soft laugh stutters out of Stiles and his breathing begins to even out.

"Sorry," he says, heart calming. "They're really hard; I have to do it as soon as I get out of the shower, and I always forget." He squirms, hunkering down like he's cold. Derek pulls the sheet over his shoulder and tucks it down in the gap between them to block the air. He could keep Stiles warm if he pulled him closer. But that would mean something, to Stiles if not to Derek. Something Derek can't give him.

"You were dreaming," Derek says to redirect his thoughts. He is curious about Stiles's dream. "Do you have nightmares often?"

"More than when I was a kid," Stiles answers. Then blows out a breath. "That's not true, actually, it's not that often." He's still fidgeting beneath the covers, sending not-so-subtle glances Derek's way.

"What are they about?" Derek asks, ignoring the sweep of Stiles's eyelashes and the uncertainty in his eyes.

Stiles rolls his eyes, rolls his whole head away from Derek and, in an exaggerated whisper, says, _"Dead things, Mikey, dead things."_

Derek parses through what was clearly an attempt to derail them. "So, the ghosts then."

Stiles huffs. "Not really. More, hm, more..." He draws in a deep breath. "Right after... right after the, uh, the night of the lunar eclipse, I had a few, but those were all about not getting to my dad in time. And a couple about Scott turning evil like all the other alphas. Um, except you," he adds, looking sideways at Derek then away. He breathes in deep and swallows audibly. "When I was little, when my mom was sick in the hospital, I used to have this dream: She'd be standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me, with her arms reaching up, wanting me to come give her a hug. But I couldn't because she was just a skeleton. Just bones wrapped in a white gown."

Derek's hand twitches, his arm starts to rise to wrap around Stiles, but he holds it back, lets his knuckles rest very lightly at Stiles's elbow instead. Stiles pushes his arm against Derek's hand.

"After she—I had dreams that she came back. In some of them she was healthy again. But most of the time, she was still dead, but here with me. They weren't scary," Stiles says, like he's reassuring Derek. "She was still my mom and I was happy she was back. And then I'd wake up and realize it was just a dream."

Derek swallows, closes his eyes, and tell Stiles, "I've had ones like that, too. Though not for a while."

"But she's not here," Stiles whispers, voice unsteady.

"What was this one about?" Derek asks, steering them away from that and back to the main topic. "The dream." If it was anything like the ones Derek had been having...

"We were dead," says Stiles. "All of us. We weren't seeing ghosts; we _were_ the ghosts. We were seeing the living and they couldn't help us." He peers up at Derek then. "Why? Have you been having nightmares?"

Derek hesitates. He should've expected that — Stiles was always too perceptive for anyone's good. He still doesn't understand the dreams, but ultimately decides it's time he told someone. "They started when I left — not every night at first, but more frequent the farther away I got. They weren't really nightmares, I wasn't... scared by them, but I got an overall feeling. That something was here, calling me back."

"The Nemeton?"

"Maybe." _Yes,_ he'd thought originally, but now he's not so sure.

"Was it always the same dream?" Stiles asks, curiosity taking over, sadness ebbing away.

Derek thinks for a moment how to describe them. "I can't recall any clear images. They weren't like normal dreams. But it was the same," he says, nodding. "A presence that I could feel with all my senses."

"What kind of presence?"

He pauses, thinking about that really for the first time. "I don't know. Not evil. Or good necessarily. Just... waiting."

"Huh." Stiles looks contemplative; Derek can feel his fingers twisting the sheet between their bodies. "And that's why you came back?"

Stiles has his face down, chin to his chest with the blankets up to his cheek and blocking Derek's view. He can't see Stiles's eyes, but he can hear his heart starting to pound, can smell the sweat at his temples.

"I just. Needed to see," Derek says.

"Are you still having them?" asks Stiles, and he lifts his eyes to Derek's, big and bright and inquisitive.

The answer to that is no; Derek hasn't been having _those_ dreams. At some point after he'd arrived in town, his dreams changed. He's had some new dreams. Not every night, just one or two, and not like the ones that brought him here. But about Stiles.

"Not since I've been back," he says. "But I feel like... like whatever I'm here for isn't finished yet."

"Huh." Stiles says once more. He shifts on the mattress, angling his body away from Derek, obscuring his face in the blankets again.

From his vantage, Derek can see the high blush on his cheek, can feel the heat radiating from his body. His scent bleeds arousal into the air and his heart rate is elevated... Derek realizes that Stiles is embarrassed again, turning away from him to hide his body's reactions. Perhaps he's only just now remembered that they're both naked under here. Perhaps he regrets what they did, what Derek did. Below the covers, Derek feels those aimlessly wandering fingers tighten on the sheet between them, like Stiles is trying to cover himself, close himself off from Derek.

"Can't believe I fell asleep. Again," Stiles says. "And then had the most depressing afterglow conversation ever." He laughs, a soft breathy noise that sounds more self-deprecating than joking. Or maybe he thinks Derek regrets it now?

"You probably need to get home?" Derek tries to turn it into a question, leaving it open for Stiles to choose.

"Oh, yeah. Shit, what time is it?" He looks past Derek to the window. The curtains are closed, but it's obviously dark outside. Derek has to reach his arm out of the warm cocoon of blankets to the bedside table for his phone.

"Almost eight," he says, setting it back down and rolling onto his back, leaving a wider gap between them. Stiles should go. Derek waits, but the movement beside him has ceased. Stiles lies very still, breathing steady, if the tiniest bit tremulous.

"It's... it's not as late as I thought," Stiles says cautiously. There's a soft rustle as Stiles turns his head to look over at Derek. For a moment, Derek can't look back. He doesn't know what to do, what he _is_ doing, or what's happening to both of them.

But he's Stiles's first. No matter what, that will always be true and Stiles will always remember it. This should be a good memory. Derek can do that for him, if nothing else. He blew it last time, the last two times, really, but he can make up for that now. When this spell — or whatever it is over them — fades and ends, maybe Stiles won't look back on this with regret.

Slowly, Derek edges onto his side, closer to Stiles. He sneaks a hand under the sheet separating them and lifts it up out of the way. Before letting himself touch, he checks Stiles's expression, asks with his eyes. Stiles scoots into him, one hand coming to rest on Derek's bare chest right over his heart. Derek wraps his arm around Stiles and draws their bodies together, skin to skin, touching everywhere.

"No," Derek says, nosing along Stiles's hairline to his ear, "it's not too late yet."

 

* * *

 

Derek says goodbye this time with a kiss at the door. It takes all of Stiles's willpower (plus some extra he didn't know he possessed) to break away from him, get into his Jeep, and drive away. He'll see him tomorrow. That's what he tells himself; Derek's just a sleep and an eight-hour school day away, and then they can... Then they can whatever — whatever they're doing, they can do some more.

When he gets home, his dad is waiting for him. "You're late," he says mildly, after Stiles closes the door.

"Sorry!" Stiles calls back, but he can't wipe the stupid smile off his face.

Dad rounds the corner while Stiles is taking off his shoes. "You weren't answering your phone."

"Huh?" Stiles pulls his phone out of his pocket and looks at it. Three missed calls, all from 'Dad'. "Oh, sorry," he says more sincerely this time. "It was on silent." He'd silenced it when he left school, then forgot about it.

"And you cut class today," Dad says, folding his arms over his chest. Stiles winces. The school must've called him.

"Uh... I had ghost reasons?" It feels good to be able to say that to his dad, and he did, tangentially, though he's not going to bring up his mom; he won't use that on his dad again.

"I know. I talked to Scott." Dad's eyes soften, and his arms loosen to hang at his sides. "He let me know you were all right."

Well, there goes that idea. But his dad looks okay. Worried, but okay. Stiles gives him a little smile. "I just needed—" He almost says 'to be alone' but that would be a lie. "To clear my head a little."

Dad nods, accepting, and directs him into the kitchen for some dinner — spaghetti and meatballs, one of the few dishes his dad does well. "If you drove around all afternoon and evening," Dad says, because he knows Stiles so well. "I hope you remembered to fill up your tank. And you'll need to get the oil changed soon."

"Yep, I'm on it," Stiles replies, grabbing a fork and one of the bigger bowls out of the cupboard. He's starving.

Dad rubs his big hand over Stiles's head affectionately. "All clear in there now?"

Stiles moves his head, feinting ducking out of reach when he secretly likes it. "Yeah," he says quietly.

Though it's strange, now he's thinking about it. He's been much more clear-headed these days, since the night Derek came back. Except when he's around Derek, or thinking about Derek, or dreaming about Derek.

He still can't believe how amazing it was, how amazing _Derek_ was, lying with him and holding him and touching him and kissing him. He was nice. Actually, sincerely nice! He seems to have made up his mind, at least, about wanting this. Wanting Stiles. Someone actually wants him back. The feeling is a full-body warmth, lit from the inside. He imagines his own eyes glowing with it, like a werewolf's because he can't contain it.

God, no wonder Scott was such an idiot when he and Allison first started doing it. It's truly amazing he had any higher brain functions at all. Stiles totally gets it now. He'd have thought that _finally_ having sex with someone would, like, take the edge off, but it just ramps up his usual low-grade, ever-present horniness times a million. He can't stop grinning, either.

"Are you humming?" asks Dad, interrupting Stiles's thoughts.

"Am I?" He turns around to find his dad watching him around the edge of the freezer door. Stiles narrows his eyes. "What are you sneaking over there?" Dad pulls back, revealing a carton of Strawberry Cheesecake Swirl ice cream. "Hey! You—"

"Am the one who talked your principal out of suspending you for ditching class," he says, one eyebrow raised at Stiles, who deflates.

"Fine. A _little_ ," Stiles stresses, "you can have a little."

"I also talked you out of detention for the rest of the week." He grins, smug, and serves himself up three scoops into a large bowl. Stiles doesn't argue, but he sees a lot of steamed vegetables in his dad's future.

"Actually, thanks," Stiles says. "We were planning to, uh, me and Scott, and the gang—" He doesn't use the word 'pack' often, mostly because it still sounds weird to him and he's not entirely sure he understands all of the implications yet, but also because he doesn't know how cool his dad would be with it, either. "We were gonna go out in the preserve tomorrow after school. Nothing major, more like a nature walk. Just checking things out."

Dad frowns at him then, wrinkle between his eyebrows going deeper. He heaves a big sigh. "Promise me you'll all stay together, and call me if anything happens."

"Promise," he responds immediately. "But I really don't think anything's gonna happen. We're just looking around."

That's the plan, though he's well aware how often things go according to plan. Preparedness is his middle name, so after dinner he heads to his room for a little light reading. If he can just figure out what the Nemeton is doing, how it's using Lydia, using all of them—since the horrible ice bath of last fall, he's felt it. This cold, dark cave in his chest. He can feel Scott there, too. And Allison, though more faint. It's been a cloud inside of him, muddling up his head for the past few months.

Except... that night in the woods, the night Derek came back, the night Lydia went on walkabout and released that energy, or whatever it was, that blew him to the ground... it's like it blew the fog out of his brain as well. Everything's been sharper, since then. More real.

He wonders if Scott and Allison have felt the same.

He pulls up the same old websites on his laptop, rereading all the things he bookmarked, but it's not revealing anything new. All of Deaton's books are still in Derek's motel room. Stiles really hopes nobody jizzed on any of them.

He loses about an hour daydreaming, and eventually gives up on research and goes to bed. If he doesn't fall asleep right away, and maybe goes through a few tissues, well... no one has to know.

 

* * *

 

The hummingbird beat of Stiles's heart is thundering on the other side of the door to his motel room, echoing the anxious drumming in Derek's chest. Stiles hasn't knocked yet; he's just come up to the door and stopped. Without waiting any longer, Derek breathes in through his nose, pulls the door open, and marches out to meet him.

He's not alone.

Scott's in the parking lot standing by a car, but Derek can also see Allison in the driver's seat, Lydia next to her, and Isaac leaning forward from the back. Derek hadn't planned on dealing with the entire brat pack first thing. When Stiles called and said, 'Meet you at your motel,' Derek probably shouldn't have assumed he'd be coming alone, but he'd figured they'd meet the others at the preserve. In any case, he's definitely taking his own car.

"Hey," Stiles says, stepping up to him. He's trying to school his face, but his lips keep curling (downward, but it's still a smile, Derek doesn't know how he does that) and his cheeks flush even redder. "Um, Allison's car is kind of crowded, so I figured I'd ride with you." He falls in beside Derek as he walks over to his Toyota, bumping his elbow.

"Yeah, me too," says Scott, coming up behind them. Derek doesn't miss the flash of surprise (and disappointment? resignation?) on Stiles's face before he moves over and lets Scott take the front seat. Derek's not sure what Stiles has told him, but it doesn't appear that Scott knows. If he did, Derek's pretty sure Scott wouldn't be this friendly toward him.

The drive to the preserve is short, but not short enough. Scott keeps thinking of Alpha Questions (Derek can hear the capitals) to ask him, but Derek honestly doesn't know how to answer most of them. It's not like he was the best alpha ever. Stiles is oddly quiet. Derek keeps trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror, but he's resolutely looking out the window. He'd looked happy to see Derek at the motel, and he'd obviously wanted to ride with him alone. Derek would have preferred that as well. He has no idea what he'd say to Stiles, but Derek likes his company.

He wouldn't have believed that a few months ago.

He almost hadn't wanted to let Stiles go last night. Everything feels simultaneously easier and more complicated when they're together, just the two of them. It's easy to give in, to _want_ , and take what's offered, but it's all just going to hurt more in the end.

In the preserve, as they work their way back through the woods to the Nemeton, Derek hones in on each of them, trying to keep their sounds and scents discrete from one another. That is the whole point of coming back out here, after all. It's difficult focusing on more than one person at a time (not like with pack, how everyone is just there) and Stiles seems to ride roughshod over all of his senses. Which is stupid, because he's still mostly being quiet.

Allison and Lydia are out to Derek's right, a few paces behind him. He can hear the soft creak of Lydia's shoes; Allison's steps are lighter, almost wolf-like. Isaac is ahead, but between the girls and Derek. If Derek couldn't see him, he'd still know exactly where Isaac was by the shuffling of his feet through the grass and leaves. Someone needs to teach him better stealth — another area in which Derek failed him as alpha. Scott and Stiles are on Derek's left, making more noise than all of the others combined. Scott keeps knocking his shoulder against Stiles; he must be aware that something is off with Stiles, too.

"I thought ghosts were supposed to stick to the place they died or, like, where their remains are buried or something," Scott says to no one in particular, breaking the relative silence.

"I thought ghosts weren't real," Derek answers back.

"Says the _werewolf_ ," Stiles pipes up for the first time, and Derek looks over at him to see that he's looking back.

"Just because I exist," Derek says, smirking, "doesn't mean everything does."

"But it could." Stiles is full-out grinning at him now. "And, hey, maybe there are good things. Like unicorns."

"They're probably vicious and _eat_ virgins." Derek snaps his teeth on 'eat' and Stiles laughs; his face goes bright red, though, breath short, and Derek can't help but shudder, remembering all they did last night. Isaac looks back at them over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifted in Derek's direction. Derek ignores it.

"You're so negative," Stiles laments with a phony sigh, shaking his head.

"And you're not?"

Stiles shrugs. "When it suits me," he says. "Though, it's easy to be considered optimistic compared to you." He walks a diagonal line until he's next to Derek. "Nobody's optimistic compared to Scott." He gestures at Scott, who has wandered up ahead with Isaac.

Scott turns around. "I think you're optimistic!"

"See?" Stiles says, raising his eyebrows at Derek. The smile steals so slowly across Derek's face, he doesn't even think to stop it. Especially not when Stiles is smiling back. Until he trips and Derek automatically shoots a hand out to steady him. Stiles ducks his head, blotches of color high on his cheeks, his heart fluttering in his chest.

He glances up at Derek, then his gaze goes past Derek's shoulder and he quickly looks away again. Derek looks that way out of the corners of his eyes and spots Lydia watching them speculatively. He removes his hand from Stiles's elbow and wishes he'd worn his coat so he could keep his hands in his pockets.

"You noticed this weather lately?" Stiles asks, too loud. "It's a little warm for this time of year. Even for California."

"It was cold this morning at school," says Scott. "Sorry I forgot your jacket again, man," he directs to Stiles, and Stiles waves him off. It's not like he needs it right now. Derek looks up at the bright, washed out sky. It's certainly winter gray up above, but the temperature doesn't match.

"No chance this is just global warming, is there?" asks Stiles. "I mean, as far as climatic signs of the apocalypse go, it beats rain of toads."

Scott has turned forward again, walking with Isaac, and Lydia and Allison have moved out even further from the core of the group. Derek can hear them whispering to each other, but he doesn't bother listening to their words.

"If amphibians start falling from the sky," Derek says, "I'm leaving town again."

Next to him, Stiles's pace falters, and his heartbeat skips, but he recovers himself quickly. "What? Do you have frog fear? What if it rained tadpoles?" He pauses, then his face cracks and he snickers.

Derek rolls his eyes, locking his face down. He refuses to laugh. "You just thought of a sperm joke, didn't you?"

"I totally did."

"Guys." Scott stops suddenly, holding one hand up like a platoon leader to halt the others. "Listen."

They're all very silent and still for a moment.

"I don't hear anything," says Stiles.

"Yeah." Scott looks at each of them. "Me neither."

It's noticeable now that Derek's paying attention. The woods are muted. If there are any animals about, and he's beginning to think they won't venture this close to the Nemeton on their own, he can't hear or smell them.

"Is your hearing impaired, also?" Stiles asks him.

"It's still better than yours," Derek retorts. "But yes. A little. Everything is dampened somehow."

Each of their heartbeats are muffled, as though far away, and Derek has to concentrate to even pick them out. If he loses focus, they dull into nothing, barely even background noise. Footsteps, clothes rustling, Stiles's open-mouthed breathing, it's all gone unless Derek trains his ear specifically to each sound. His nose isn't doing any better. At least his eyes are still sharp.

Nobody speaks again while they walk, more carefully than before. The quiet is eerie, but calming. That, in itself, is enough to send a trickle down Derek's spine — the heebie-jeebies, Laura would've called it. It sounds like something Stiles would say, too.

The closer they get, the worse it is. Or better. A soothing, gentle wave washing over, pushing lightly then drawing them in, like the tide. It's like walking through walls, layers. Rings.

At the center is the Nemeton and uncorrupted serenity. The wrongness in the air evaporates with that last final step into the small radius around the stump. Scents and sounds return as well.

"It's like my ears just popped," Scott says. He scrunches his face up. "And my nose, I guess. You guys?" He looks to Isaac and Derek and they both nod.

"So there's, like, an outer ring surrounding it where your senses are dulled," says Stiles, going closer to it. Derek wants to stop him, but he holds still. "And in the center… are we in, like, the eye? Is that a thing?"

"In the root cellar, I could hear and smell just fine," Derek tells them, remembering being down there with Stiles that afternoon a few weeks ago.

"If this is the eye, then the rest of town is the storm?" says Allison.

"Weren't we supposed to come out here and fix this?" asks Isaac. "You're all just making it sound worse and worse."

Lydia's been unusually quiet (as far as Derek can tell, anyway; she's never seemed shy about speaking her mind), and he hadn't noticed until she walks past Allison and Scott right up to the stump, reaching one hand out to touch.

"Lydia, I don't think you shou—" Stiles cuts off with a strangled yelp. Derek is there at his side when he staggers back and starts to fall.

Scott and Allison are both doubled over, mouths big round O's with no sound escaping. Isaac oscillates between them, holding Allison up while trying to catch Scott as well.

But it all, all of them and the woods and the grass and the sky, dims into shadow compared to the bright white aura surrounding Lydia and the Nemeton. Her hair is wild, flying every which way in an unfelt wind, and her face is once again streaming with tears.

It lasts less than a minute, thirty seconds at most, the brightness intensifies and illuminates the woods as far as Derek's eyes can see. Within that light are vague silhouettes. In the shape of people. Surrounding them.

The light blows out with a quick, but temperate gust, and the day returns to its overcast, dull gray.

In Derek's arms, Stiles sucks in a huge gasp of air, jolting Derek's attention back to him. He clutches Derek's hand in one of his, the other tangled in Derek's shirt. He's sitting up on the ground with Derek half-kneeling beside him. Derek sweeps the hair back from Stiles's forehead, letting his hand rest there for a moment. He can not only hear, but feel the rapid beat of Stiles's heart.

"That was weird," Stiles says, still catching his breath. His mouth curls in a smile as Derek stares at him. He can feel his own heart thudding wildly in his chest. "I'm okay, dude," Stiles says as quietly as he can. The hand fisted in his shirt loosens and pets his side lightly. Together they get Stiles to his feet, but before Stiles can even brush the dirt off his pants, he's bolting forward out of Derek's arms. "Oh my god, Lydia!"

Stiles rushes to her side, past Scott and Allison and Isaac all huddled together on the ground catching their own breath. Stiles picks her up, her arms going around his neck, her face a mask of terror or shock. Derek can't tell, but she's gone deathly white and the tears have left visible tracks on her usually rosy cheeks. Her hair is a tangled rat's nest of red curls, made worse when Stiles runs his fingers over it.

"You're okay," Stiles is murmuring to her. "Are you okay?"

Allison pulls herself together and gets to her feet quickly, picking her way over Scott and Isaac to get to Lydia. As soon as she reaches her, Lydia clutches her hand.

"Lydia, what happened?" Allison asks her. "What did it do to you?" But Lydia's only response is to squeeze her hand tighter, her whole body trembling.

"Uh, did everyone else see the shadow people all around us?" asks Isaac, eyes wide and not settling on any one place or person. "Because that wasn't freaky or anything."

Derek nods at him, but Scott says, "No," and Allison and Stiles shake their heads, too. Of course, they were all probably too preoccupied to look around and notice that.

"Are you—you three, are you all right?" Derek asks them, though he can't help but look directly at Stiles.

"No, I'm fine, I'm fine," Stiles says. He still has one arm around Lydia, watching her intently. "It didn't hurt, it was just… like I was a wind tunnel. Not _in_ a wind tunnel, I _was_ the tunnel."

"Totally, that's totally how it felt!" says Scott, jumping to his feet, and Allison nods agreement. "Like wind rushing through me. Not bad, though. It wasn’t cold, just cool and…"

"Kind of refreshing," says Allison, a note of surprise coloring her voice. Stiles is nodding along with her.

"But, what _was_ that?" Isaac asks, standing next to Scott.

"I know now," Lydia says, snapping their attention back to her, voice raspy and low. "I know why." She looks Derek in the eye, of all people, and releases her death grip on Allison and Stiles, straightening her spine. Gathering her hair back into a messy ponytail, Lydia announces, "We have to go. I have to finish it." And she starts marching back toward the cars.

"Wha—Lydia!" Scott calls, running after her. "Finish what?"

The others look at each other helplessly and follow, hurrying to catch up. Stiles turns back when Derek doesn't move, questioning with his eyes.

"You should go with her," Derek tells him. Stiles opens his mouth, but Derek cuts off any protest. "I have something else to do." He glances past Stiles to check the others aren't waiting or watching; they're all far off now with their backs to him and Stiles. Derek reaches out and briefly touches Stiles's fingers. "It's okay. Go."

Stiles takes a few backward steps, watching Derek with a curious, almost doubtful expression, before turning around and running to catch up with the others. Derek watches until he's out of sight, then turns and walks in the opposite direction through the woods.

This might be his last chance.

 

* * *

 

Lydia directs them back to Deaton's clinic, where all mysteries in this town converge. The mystery man himself is waiting for them. Deaton looks freaked when they get there (meaning his eyebrows are about a millimeter higher than normal and there's a small crease in his forehead).

"You opened yourself," he says to Lydia first thing, and she nods. "You listened then?"

"Yes," she says. "It wasn't just me. It was them." She points behind her at Scott and Allison and Stiles.

"They cleared the way," says Deaton, as though it's just occurring to him. "Yes, of course."

"Of course?" Stiles asks. " _Of course,_ he says." He looks around to others, but apart from Lydia, they look as lost as he feels. He rounds on Deaton, annoyed, maybe a little angry. "What the hell does that mean? What way did we clear?"

"Do you still have those books I loaned you, Mr. Stilinski?"

"Do I—yeah, yes. Obviously not on me," Stiles prevaricates. The books are still in Derek's room, and he doesn't know where Derek went. "Why? Do we need them? Because I can tell you we found—I mean, I. I found zilch while I was looking through them."

Scott looks at him funny, and Lydia actually rolls her eyes.

"They aren't necessary," says Deaton, "but they would help to explain. Come with me, all of you." He beckons them through the door from the outer office into the back. They gather round the table in the middle of the room, Deaton at the head with Lydia, Scott, and Stiles on one side, and Allison and Isaac on the other.

In the center of the table, Deaton sets a small, intricately carved piece of wood. The man does love using props during story time.

"The Nemeton," he begins, "is a focal point, a conduit through which one may concentrate and draw power. It is neither good nor bad on its own."

"Yeah, it's basically neutral ground," Stiles says. "I read that in almost all of those books."

"Yes." Deaton nods once at him. "Its power, however, can be used for whatever purposes of those that control it."

"How do people control it?" asks Scott.

"Sacrifices," Stiles supplies before Deaton can. "Blood sacrifices."

"Sometimes," says Deaton. "That would be the most powerful way to connect its life force to one's own. But it is a brutal deed, dark and perverse."

"The Darach made blood sacrifices to use the Nemeton's power," says Allison.

"Yes, but those were not only blood sacrifices, they were murders," Deaton says far too calmly for the subject matter. "Innocent lives taken for dark purposes polluted the Nemeton's power. It had started to invade the town like a sickness. You'd noticed, hadn't you? For these last few months, how people acted as though the town was toxic. You yourselves were affected, as well."

They all nod. At first, Stiles thought it was only the three of them, Scott and Allison and him, feeling the darkness they'd let into themselves. But he'd noticed others acting a little off, spooked and wary. His dad had told him as much, too. It hadn't gotten much better with ghosts floating about town.

"You said there were other kinds of sacrifices?" Isaac asks, eyes flicking from the carved wooden figurine to Deaton.

"You three," he answers, pointing to them. "You sacrificed yourselves to save your parents. A sacrifice given freely out of love is more powerful than anything that can be taken. It _should_ have cleansed the Darach's influence, reset the Nemeton to its natural, neutral state."

"Should have?" Stiles asks. He suspects Deaton knew all of this all along and just decided never to tell them. _Like always._

"Something must have happened to corrupt it again afterward."

"The blood!" Allison exclaims. "The blood we found on the stump, remember?"

"But we don't know whose that was, or how it got there," Scott reminds her.

"It doesn't matter," says Deaton. "It would have been enough."

"How does this involve Lydia, or ghosts?" Stiles asks, impatiently.

"When the three of you crossed into the veil, you left a… a window open behind you. They called to Lydia, the only one who can release them."

"So, they're trapped?" asks Scott, dismayed.

"Spirits unable to move on," Stiles surmises.

"Don't think of them as ghosts, as such," Deaton says quickly. "They're more like echoes of those who've died here, a reflection of their lives and deaths. But they are stuck, yes. Lost."

"And they called to Lydia because she can lead them to their… final destination," Stiles says slowly, pieces slotting into place. "Because she is the guardian to the spirit world."

"I thought she was a—" Isaac starts, then looks to Lydia. "I thought you were a banshee."

"In Celtic mythology, the banshee is an omen of death, the wailing woman," says Allison.

"Uh-huh, which Lydia does very well, I might add. Sorry." Stiles raises his hands, palms out when she glares at him. "But other cultures have a similar being, and in some of those tales she also guides spirits of the dead from this world into the next."

_Stupid poetry,_ he thinks, shaking his head. If they'd just spell it out in plain English…

"They called to me," Lydia says. "Begging to be let go."

"So that's what you did in the woods that night?" asks Scott. "But why are they still here?"

"The night Lydia was summoned, you said there was some type of blast?" Deaton asks, but doesn't wait for a response. "That dark energy was still building; I believe Lydia managed to douse it, if briefly."

"It's out," Stiles whispers. "That's what you said. It's out. Like a light." Lydia's eyes turn sharp towards him, boring in like she's solving a puzzle.

"Is that what happened today?" asks Isaac.

"Only Stiles was in the woods with me last time," Lydia says, watching him shrewdly.

"Lydia is a guide to the spirits; she cannot break the Nemeton's hold on her own. They are tied by the residual energy that the Darach generated, captive, you might say." Deaton looks at each of them. "You three began the process of purging that darkness, and now you must finish it."

 

 

Outside the animal clinic, Lydia stops Stiles before he can follow the others to Allison's car. "Derek was there, wasn't he? That night in the woods." 

Stiles startles, reins himself in, and bends closer to her. "You remember?"

"Not completely." She shakes her head, eyes going far away for a moment before turning back on him. "Why does nobody else know?"

"Ah—I..." Stiles stutters. "He didn't—" He releases a long breath. "I don't know," he finally says, and shrugs helplessly. He glances towards the others waiting by the car. Scott and Isaac seem to be play-fighting with Allison shoving in between them. Stiles snorts at that.

When he looks back to Lydia, her lips are pursed and her eyes keen, probing. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asks.

A beat of tense silence passes between them. Then Stiles forces his limbs to relax, shoulders and spine going loose. He tries his best smirk. "Do I ever?"

She doesn't look appeased, but she lets it go. "He needs to be there, too. Tomorrow night, when we do this."

"Derek? Why?"

"I'm not—I just feel it," she says, her mouth set in a thin line.

Stiles nods slowly, seriously. They've got a plan now. Lydia knows what she needs to do, and Deaton explained what she'll need them for. Everyone wanted to get it over with, but Lydia needs time to prepare herself, and Deaton advised that they would be strongest with the peak of the moon's cycle (his words). So they're just waiting now.

"And I want those books," Lydia demands. "All of them. I want every scrap having to do with it or me, and anything else you can find."

"What? Now?"

"After we've finished this." She walks past Stiles toward Allison's car. "My mind is my own. I will not let anyone, or anything, use it against me again."

 

 

After Allison drops him off at his house, Stiles immediately hops in his Jeep and heads back out. He gets about halfway to Derek's motel when he realizes that's not where Derek is.

It's just after sundown and here he is, tromping through the woods in the dark again. The Hale house shouldn't be much farther, if he's not mistaken. He could be mistaken, though. He is easily mistaken lots of times. Derek might not even be out he—"Oof!"

His breath rushes out of him as his back hits the tree trunk. It's a good thing he knows those hands on him are Derek's, or he'd be pissing his pants right now. "Ow," he says, smiling a little.

"Stiles." Derek blows a gust of air just past his ear, nose nearly touching Stiles's cheek. "What are you doing out here?"

"Well, I came to find you obviously." His hands hover at Derek's sides, uncertain for a moment, until he nuts up and just cups them around Derek's hips. "I thought this might be where you'd gone," he says softly, moving his head to brush Derek's cheek with his. He feels Derek's eyelashes on his skin, fluttering. "Still no sign?"

Derek's breath stutters when he inhales, his head moving slightly side-to-side. "I still haven't gone in."

Stiles cranes his neck around the trees. In the dusk he can just make out the hulking shadow of Derek's old house. He turns back and slides his arms around Derek's waist. "You shouldn't," he says.

"I just wanted..."

"I know." He threads his fingers through Derek's hair, guides Derek's head down to rest on his shoulder until Derek's face is tucked into Stiles's neck. "I know you did, but they're not here, Derek. They've gone. Wherever it is we go next, that's where they are. With my mom."

He swears Derek whimpers at that and holds him tighter. They stay like that for a while, a few minutes at the least, until the last light of the setting sun fades out of the sky.

"So, we figured out how to fix it," Stiles says into Derek's hair. "Or Lydia did, anyway. And Deaton probably _already knew_ because he does that."

Derek pulls back to frown at him. "What do you mean? Fix it."

"This!" Stiles announces gleefully. "I mean, the thing with the whatever Lydia did. That we started, apparently. Me and Scott and Allison. It's a whole big story to do with the Nemeton and Lydia. We should've been researching her the whole time. We know next to nothing about her banshee-ness. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Wow, we're so dumb sometimes."

"You've… figured out how to break the spell?" Derek asks, eyes roving over Stiles's face.

"Well, I don't think it's a spell so much, but yeah. We're waiting for the full moon, though. Always with the frickin' moon around here. And she needs us. All of us, I mean. You and me and Scott and Allison. Isaac, too, for moral support I guess."

"Full moon tomorrow," Derek says quietly, gazing up at the sky. "And then it'll all be over?"

"Yep." Stiles nods, then shakes his head. "I think the Nemeton will still be an active… thing, or whatever but." He shrugs, hands tightening on Derek's sides, and grins. "No more ghosts. No more dark hearts."

Derek's eyes return to his. Stiles can barely see in the dark, can't quite make out Derek's expression.

"No more…" Derek murmurs, leaning in to place a tiny, soft kiss on Stiles's lips. Stiles doesn't let him get away with just that; he slides his hands to the small of Derek's back and pulls him in closer, opens his mouth and sucks Derek's bottom lip until he comes back in kissing Stiles hard.

Derek's hands travel down to his ass and lift him up against the tree. Stiles laughs, breathless. "We gotta—huh." He cuts off when Derek moves in between his legs.

"What?" Derek mumbles, panting into his neck, sucking on the corded tendons there.

"I was... gonna say..." Stiles moans, and his hips start rocking against Derek, feeling the hardness inside his jeans. "Was gonna say we gotta stop meeting like this, but actually no, no, let's not stop. Ever."

Derek shudders in his arms. Stiles wriggles between him and the tree, lowers his face to try and catch Derek's mouth again, but Derek stills. He takes half a step back, setting Stiles's feet on the ground again.

"We should…"

"What?" Stiles asks, a cold knot suddenly twisting his insides. Derek's staring at him like he's trying to memorize Stiles's face.

"Go," Derek says. "We should go. Back to my room?"

Stiles grins, the knot dissolving. He nods, biting his lip, and Derek leans in, kisses him softly, squeezes his fingers before leading him away.

 

 

In his Jeep, following Derek to the motel, he calls Scott. "Hey, buddy, is your mom working tonight?" he asks as soon as Scott picks up.

"Yeah, she won't be home until morning. You need something?"

"Could you—if my dad asks, could you tell him I'm staying with you tonight?"

"Sure," Scott says easily. There's a crinkling sound on Scott's end, like a chip bag. "I'm just chillin' by myself, if you want to come over for real." Before Stiles can say anything to that, Scott asks, "Where are you really?"

"I… um." Stiles draws in a deep breath. "I'm with Derek."

"Oh," Scott says. "I kind of figured."

Stiles almost drops his phone. "You knew?"

"Hey, I notice stuff!" Scott protests. "I wasn't gonna say anything," he says more quietly. "Not until, or unless you, you know."

"Thanks, man," Stiles tell him. "I owe you one."

"I think we're even. See you guys tomorrow?"

Stiles confirms their plans for tomorrow and hangs up. He calls his dad next to tell him he's staying at Scott's for the night, hangs up as he rounds the Jeep into the parking lot of Derek's motel. He pulls into the space next to Derek's car and Derek is waiting for him at the door.

He's nervous, and excited, and sweating, and realizes that Derek can probably sense all of that about him. If the look he's giving Stiles is any indication, maybe Derek's feeling all those things, too. Stiles barely waits for him to close the door before kissing him. Derek slows it down, wrapping his hands around Stiles's hip bones, kisses like he's savoring the taste. Stiles has never felt more wanted in his life.

 

* * *

 

Stiles's fingers tickle familiar swirls over Derek's back, tracing the outline of his tattoo. It's soothing, lulling Derek into a restful doze.

"I can't believe you let someone do this to you," Stiles says.

Derek cracks one eye open to peer up at him. "You seem to like it well enough."

Stiles grins. "Yeah, never thought I particularly cared for tattoos until..." He leans forward and presses his lips to Derek's inked skin. It sends a tingle down Derek's spine, a light buzzing in his nerve endings. "I meant more, I can't believe you let someone, you know, do that. I watched how it was done, remember?" Stiles's hand rests over the mark, like a brand.

Derek rolls his shoulders, not trying to shake Stiles's touch away but press up into it. Sometimes he imagines he can feel the triskele there in the middle of his back, but even the memory of the pain is long gone. 

"Laura did it," he says. "Not the ink, I went to a professional for that, but she fixed it. Made it permanent." He'd done it without telling her, actually, on his eighteenth birthday, and she called him an idiot when he showed her the clean skin. "She didn't want to do it, but I asked."

"That must've hurt." Stiles's voice is soft, reverent in the dark of the room.

Derek shrugs, rolls onto his side and loops his arm around Stiles's waist. It had hurt, at the time, but that was the point. He hadn't meant to cause Laura pain, as well, in the process. But that's just the story of Derek's life.

He hadn't wanted to hurt anyone. He doesn't want to hurt Stiles now.

But this is it. Tomorrow it ends. Stiles had explained everything, what they're going to do under the full moon, how it started and why. That's what Derek was needed for.

"It's late," Derek says, reluctantly pulling away from Stiles and creating a gap between their bodies. The sheets pull taut across them until Derek tucks it down around him, like a wall. "You should go home, Stiles."

"Well, I'm 'sleeping at Scott's house,' so…" He smirks and starts moving over toward Derek again. "I can stay."

Derek lifts the sheet off himself and sits up quickly on the edge of the bed, putting his back to Stiles. "No. You can't."

"What?" He feels Stiles sit up behind him, rustling the sheets. "Why?"

"Tomorrow night it's over, remember." Derek hangs his head low, gripping the edge of the mattress. "I just wanted one last—I thought we could—but it'll be worse if you stay, so you need to go. Now."

"I don't—" Stiles scoots closer, his knee just touching Derek's side. "Derek, I don't understand. Are you… are you leaving?" He sounds young, then, voice light and quivery.

Derek swallows, takes a shuddery breath. "Yes," he says. "Afterward I'm just going to go. I won't be needed here anymore. We're ending the spell, or influence, or whatever you want to call it. It's better to just—"

"Wait," Stiles cuts him off and slides across the bed to sit next to Derek until he can see his face. His eyebrows are furrowed, creases lining his forehead. His eyes are starting to look a little wet, shimmering in the low light. He smells of sweat and anxiety and Irish Spring and Derek. His heart is hammering. But his voice is steady, if not strong. "You still think it's not real."

Derek shakes his head, looking away from Stiles. "I don't know."

"You can't—" Stiles pulls in a short breath and lets it out. "But it's been good. Hasn't it?"

"Too good to trust."

Stiles clutches the sheet tighter to himself, pulling it up to cover his naked chest. "You still don't trust me?"

Derek turns to face him fully then, studies his eyes and mouth and hands. "I don't trust _me_ ," he says. "In the past, I've thought what I was feeling was true, but it never is. It never is, Stiles."

Hunching in on himself, Stiles backs away from Derek a few inches. "Did Jennifer...?" he starts and stops. "I've never asked, and I wouldn't bring it up but... I mean, I didn't even know you two were, until—until you were, and it was just... I don't know, a lot was going on then. But did she… I mean she used magic on others, herself, so, Derek…"

"I don't—I don't know. I didn't think so then. How could I know?" He's pleading, can hear it in his voice and hates it. "How can I know, Stiles?"

There's no answer. Stiles simply stares at him, eyes watery and mouth tight. He wraps the sheet around himself and his voice shakes, sounding thick when he speaks. "I have to go."

He stands on the opposite side of the bed, holding the sheet to him under his armpits while he hunts for his clothes. Derek retreats into the bathroom to give him privacy, to escape, and listens until he hears Stiles leave.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up on Scott's couch when Ms. McCall gets home from work at seven. She looks at him for a moment, but says nothing; stops only long enough to throw an extra blanket over him on her way upstairs. A few minutes later the shower starts running in the upstairs bathroom. Stiles goes back to sleep.

He doesn't wake again until mid-afternoon when Scott plops down on his feet. "Here," Scott says, handing him a burrito in a foil wrapper.

"I'm not hung over," Stiles says, but he takes it anyway and sits up on the couch.

"No, but you love burritos." And that's true enough. Scott hands him a can of soda, too. "Isaac and I went out for lunch, figured I'd bring you back something."

"Oh, thanks. Is Isaac—"

"He's not here," Scott says with a practiced shrug that means Isaac is with Allison. Stiles drops it; he's just glad Isaac isn't here to see him. "I just talked to Lydia, though," Scott says a moment later. "Everything is set for tonight." He looks at Stiles then, frown lines around his mouth. "You'll be good to go?"

"Absolutely," Stiles says. "I'm ready to—to get this over with."

"From what she and Deaton said, it won't take too long." Scott sits back on the couch, wiggling around until Stiles pulls his feet out from under him. "So, you got in late last night," he says, picking up the TV remote, but just holding it.

"Yeah," Stiles says, picking at his burrito.

"Everything okay?" Scott asks, glancing at him again. In that moment Stiles appreciates everything about Scott, who knows him well enough to know he won't want to talk about it, but cares enough that he still has to ask.

"Yeah," Stiles tells him. "I'll be fine."

 

 

The temperature has dropped remarkably. Remarkable in that it's finally down to a normal wintery degree for these parts, and has been all day. No ups and downs and freak warm spells.

To be perfectly honest, Stiles doesn't care for this particular aspect of getting things back to normal. He shivers in his jacket, finally liberated from Scott's house, because it's not the warmest jacket ever, but it's his favorite. He can't stop himself from remembering how nice Derek's wool coat had felt wrapped around him.

But he's not thinking about that, and he's not thinking about Derek even though he's standing a mere fifteen feet away on the other side of the huge tree stump. Scott is to his left, Allison to his right, completing a circle around the Nemeton. In the center, sitting cross-legged on the stump, is Lydia.

There are no potions to mix or magic words to recite. No special candles to light, either, which is good since it's illegal to have an open flame out here anyway. It's just the four of them (five counting Isaac, standing out a ways on guard) waiting for Lydia to get her banshee on. All she has to do is concentrate.

Stiles starts to open his mouth, give some encouragement, but the last two times he tried that he got yelled at, so he snaps it shut again. He jumps in place a little to keep his blood pumping.

"I swear to god, Stiles, if you don't stay still," Lydia warns him again.

"Sorry!" he says to her, then again to everyone else. "Sorry, I'm just really cold."

Allison shakes her head at him. "It's all right, Lydia, take your time."

"Shouldn't we be, like, holding hands or something?" Stiles asks, looking to Scott then Allison. He passes right over Derek, trying not to let his eyes linger.

"Are your arms that long?" Isaac calls out to them. Stiles rolls his eyes. Obviously not, if they need to make a ring around the Nemeton. _Stupid evil tree,_ he thinks.

"Guys," Scott says, a hint of scolding in his voice, a bit of alpha. "Come on. We need to—"

A white light erupts before Stiles's eyes, engulfing Lydia. Her mouth is open, but he can't hear any sound coming out. He can't hear anything at all. He feels that wind-tunnel rush again, like last time, through his entire body. But unlike the last time, he's able to look around the clearing and see the shadows. Scott's eyes are glowing deep red, his fangs showing and hair sprouting down his face. Across the way, Derek is the same, but with blue eyes.

The shadows come closer, circling them, still just shapes. Stiles can't make out distinguishing characteristics, doesn't know who they are, if one of them is Erica, or Heather, or Boyd maybe, or Allison's mom.

Slowly, they soften, outlines becoming less defined, until they melt away into the light. It blows out like a flickering flame, plunging the woods into darkness again, leaving only the pale light of the full moon overhead.

Stiles, Scott, and Allison drop to the ground as one, like puppets with their strings cut. Derek stumbles and goes down on one knee. Lydia is sitting perfectly still, in the same pose, her hair windswept but otherwise completely unmoved. She opens her eyes and smiles.

 

* * *

 

Derek almost escapes. Almost.

When he sees Stiles on the ground, he wants to go to him, but Scott is there. Allison and Isaac are there. Lydia is there for him; he doesn't need Derek. They have each other, their pack. Derek walks away.

He's halfway through the preserve and back to his car when Scott catches up with him. Derek heard him coming, but didn't slow down or speed up. If Scott wants to talk, he'll find any way to do it and there's nothing Derek could do to stop him.

"You don't have to go, you know," Scott says, stopping just short of reaching Derek. He doesn't touch him, or ask him to wait.

Derek stops and turns to face him anyway. "I'm not needed here anymore."

"Yes, you are." Scott takes a step closer, but maintains a respectable distance between them. "I don't know what happened with you guys, and I'm not asking. This isn't about that and I won't interfere. For your sake as much as his," he says, and Derek can hear the truth in his words. Scott takes one more step closer, stops, lets his arms hang at his sides. "But I could use your help."

"You've got your pack," Derek says, eyes flicking beyond Scott's shoulder where he can hear the others waiting for their alpha.

"But this is all still new to me. To all of us!" Scott says, a bit of a whine coming into his voice. He's scared, Derek realizes. "I can't do all this werewolf stuff alone, Derek. I don't know what to expect, I don't know what else could happen. And maybe you don't, either, but you know more than we do. You could stay. Help us." He cuts Derek off before he can speak. "I won't expect you to follow blindly."

"You're an alpha," Derek says, "that's what you're supposed to do."

Scott's grin is lopsided, fond but a little mocking. "Well, guess I need some pointers in that area, don't I?" He takes two more steps, closing the distance between them, and reaches out a hand to Derek. "Just think about it?" he asks, and Derek guardedly shakes the offered hand. "And if you still have to go, remember that you're always welcome here."

 

* * *

 

All in all, Stiles thinks the resolution was a little anti-climactic. The spirits are gone, and Stiles notices the town and the people are getting back to normal bit by bit. Dad says his deputies have started feeling a lot less unsettled, too. But the Nemeton remains a beacon; its milkshake still brings all the supernatural creatures to the yard. They'll be drawn to its power, _for good or ill_ , Deaton told them.

In lighter news, literally, his heart is, along with Allison's and Scott's, as pure and innocent as the day he was born. That's completely untrue, but the only darkness he carries now is the normal 'life' crap that happens to everyone. Grief. Loss.

Heartbreak.

He hasn't seen Derek since the night of the full moon, three days ago. He knows Scott spoke with him before he left, but hasn't felt like asking about it. If he never has to see Derek again, maybe this will stop hurting.

It didn't feel like he was under a spell, but then again Stiles wouldn't really know what that feels like. If it's supposedly broken now, however, he can't tell the difference. Aside from the fact that, instead of feeling excited about chilling at the sheriff's department and snooping through new cases and idly wondering what Derek is doing, he's morose and dragging his feet out of his father's office and can't stop his brain from wondering what Derek's doing.

He thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him when he rounds the block from the station and sees Derek walking out of the post office. His charcoal pea coat is buttoned up to his chin, and he's shuffling some papers in his hands. He looks up abruptly, right at Stiles like he just knew he was standing there. (He probably did, Stiles reminds himself. _Werewolf._ )

He slows to a stop on the sidewalk a few feet from Derek. "Hey."

"Hi," Derek replies, holding the papers in front of his chest like a shield.

"What's that?" Stiles asks, pointing at them.

Derek hands them over. "Change of address forms."

Confused, but curious, Stiles takes them and reads the partially filled out documents in Derek's terribly neat and tiny writing. "Walnut Street?" He looks up sharply at Derek. "That's two blocks from Scott's house." And three blocks from Stiles's house.

"Yeah." Derek nods.

Stiles stares at him, looks down at the papers, back to Derek. "You're staying?"

"Scott asked me to."

"Oh. Right. Pack stuff." Stiles drops his eyes to the ground, glimpses Derek's new address again.

"He said it would be good," Derek says, almost stammering, "if—if I stayed."

"Yeah, it will." Stiles nods fervently, forces a smile onto his face. "Scott's been wishing you'd come back for a while, really. He definitely needs help with the whole, you know, thing. So it's great. Really, I'm glad—"

"Stiles."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

A lump forms in his throat, and Stiles can feel his eyes watering. He blinks rapidly and if anyone says anything he'll blame it on the wind. "I know," he tells Derek. "It's okay."

"No, it's—" Derek grunts, frustrated, his hands in fists at his sides. He looks across the street, his eyes focusing on something far away, then back at Stiles. He opens his mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath, then tries again. "Do you want to go get a burger? With me." He nods at the diner on the corner. Stiles looks and whips his head back to Derek.

"What?"

"We could hang out for a bit. Talk." Derek shrugs, hands now stuffed in his pockets.

"Talk," Stiles repeats, slowly, eyeing him up and down. "And then what?"

Derek shrugs again, but he looks up and into Stiles's eyes. "See what happens?"

Stiles holds his gaze for a moment, then looks down at the papers still in his own hands. He ruffles the edges with his thumb a couple times, notes everything is in triplicate, then hands them back. Derek fumbles his hands out of his pockets to accept, wrinkles them a little in his fist to keep them from fluttering to the pavement. He tucks the forms into his coat, eyes dimming and looking away from Stiles, his shoulders hunched up and his feet shuffling.

"Okay," Stiles says, and Derek snaps his eyes back to him. Stiles feels one side of his mouth curl upward. He lifts one shoulder and jerks his head at the diner. "Let's go."

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Throughout most of the story, Derek believes that what he and Stiles are feeling isn't real. I set out to write a 'magic made them do it' sort of story, but with the twist that it wasn't magic at all. My initial summary when I began was: Hormones make them do it. And then they just... keep doing it. Because of reasons.
> 
> This didn't turn out anything like I thought it would. And then there were ghosts. Also, there was supposed to be a lot more sex in this story. I TRIED!
> 
> The first part of what Stiles recites about the Nemeton was taken from this poem http://normanshaw.co.uk/nemeton-poem.html (although I altered it slightly). The rest I made up. I played fast and loose with Lydia's banshee status as not just a death omen but also a messenger/medium to the underworld. There is a similar being in many different cultures, and the mythologies vary. The Norse version is a spirit guide and can come in the form of an animal or a woman that connects people or families to their fate or fortune. I sort of morphed these a little to make Lydia a guide _to_ spirits, who can usher them from this life into the next. In episode 3x06, Lydia hears the echoes of those people who died in the motel, so I played off that a little. She's the only one who heard them, so it could have been because she is closer to death and the afterlife than the others.
> 
> _"Dead things, Mikey, dead things."_ is a quote from The Goonies. I couldn't resist.
> 
> That birthday list that came out? Not following it. For me Stiles's birthday will always be in late autumn/early winter. It's the only thing that makes sense.
> 
> Oh, and I couldn't find a name for the janitor that got killed by Peter in 1x07 so I called him Mr. Baxter. Of course Scott knew his name.
> 
> Anyway, this whole story was a bit of an experiment for me, and I found writing it quite difficult at times. It was my first try at writing from Derek's POV, and I'm not sure how well I did. But I'm happy I finished, and I hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> Also, I've totally figured out how to [tumblr](http://sullymygoodname.tumblr.com/)!


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